Starlight Ablaze
by MF217
Summary: AU. Red, Blue, and Green find themselves at the start of their journeys, but also at the start of something much more brewing on around Kanto; at first one suspects the local Team Rocket as to why things are troubled, but Red and co. are quick to realize Team Rocket isn't the only team lurking in Kanto at this time, and now it's up to them to find out what is going on and stop it!
1. Prologue: Fire

**Disclaimer: This work is a non-profit fan fiction for _Pokémon_. I do not own _Pokémon_ nor do I own any of the characters aside from the occasional original character that may or may not appear in this story. The property of _Pokémon_ belongs to Game Freak, which in turn belongs to Nintendo. Please support the official works.**

 **Starlight Ablaze Prologue:**

* * *

The year is 299X; the world is perhaps not the same one you've known about in its future, or even in its past as you'll see here. Perhaps you think you know the outcome of this story before it even begins; the story does not have any true outcome, however, until the beginning before the beginning is told. This tale will be told truthfully, for it is the ideals of those interested in knowing the bigger picture.

The story begins in a place of a simple name, of a rather rural, homely origin; a place towards the western central part of a region called Kanto, within a small district known as Palette Town. Today begins with a bright, sunny morning, as a young man exits his house, dressed in a long sleeve, blue shirt, as he rushes down the road towards an uphill path that leads to a much larger building.

"Better not be late for gramps!" He says to himself as he pants from his nonstop running, as he quickly runs past a house at the bottom of the hill, just before the steep climb up towards the bigger building at the peak of the town's elevation. Outside of the house is a young woman around the same age as the impatient young man in a hurry; very patiently, the woman carries a pail of dirt towards a different spot in the yard of her front yard.

"Now then, the Gracidea flowers go over here…" The woman mumbles to herself, as she slowly walks to place the bucket she's carrying down, and then overtop of a layer of protective sheets, begins laying out the dirt onto it gently and with delicate care as she quietly pats it down into place.

At that moment, a sharp, distinct breeze hits the air as the woman shudders in the cold she feels, before moving to stand and having a look around, in which she sees a young man of her own age walking out of what is presumably his own house further across the street from her house, as she gazes at the man in questioning awe as she places seeds for some kind of flower in her garden.

' _Why is he finally leaving that house of his for once?'_ The woman thinks to herself about the man, dressed in a red jacket with a black undershirt, as well as wearing a hat with an emblem on the front of it. The man seems to be taking his time in movement; not uttering a sound as he walks towards the north of the town; the woman doesn't notice someone approaching her at this time as she gazes at the man heading north from here.

"Good morning, Green. How are you on this fine day?" An old, jolly voice of a significantly older man speaks to the woman, named Green, as Green looks over her shoulder as she looks at the man with a smile.

"Professor Oak, correct?" Green asks, as she moves to stand, as she finishes with "I don't think we've formally met before; my name is Green." Green introduces herself to the man, named Professor Oak.

"I see; I'm not exactly sure why I half expected you to say your name is Blue for a moment there, but because of that I just recalled how my grandson is going to be visiting me soon for him to get his first Pokémon. Would you care to join in and observe?" Professor Oak offers, as Green lightly chuckles a bit.

"Oh, I'll be fine; I'm more content picking my first Pokémon last, anyways; any chance the guy across the street from here could use a Pokémon for himself as well?" Green asks, to which Oak looks at her with a confused glance.

"What do you mean? You mean Red, yes?" Oak asks, to which Green nods.

"Yes, he just headed north a moment ago. I'm not sure where he thinks he's going at an hour like this. I'm kind of surprised he's even outside at all; normally he shuts himself indoors with his Nintendo Switch all day long and-"

"Is he trying to head into Route 1 up ahead without a Pokémon at all?" Professor Oak asks as he looks down the street towards the north; looking precisely as to where the man, named Red, is heading towards, as a large abundance of tall grass can be seen much further ahead as Oak gasps.

"Green, could you do me a favor and meet Blue at my laboratory? I need to stop Red before it's too late!" Oak says as he quickly rushes in a sprint to catch up with Red, before even giving Green a chance to properly answer, as Green lets out an exasperated sigh.

"Fine; let me just grab my black dress, choker and all."

Green could wish she was joking with that remark; she knew what Blue or even possibly Red would say about her appearance otherwise.

* * *

Now, though, Oak is too busy running towards Red as he watches as Red is about to step foot into the tall grass; a blur appears in Oak's vision, as he begins to feel the strain of his age as he tries to catch up to Red still.

"Red, wait!" Oak yells ahead as Red turns around to notice him after having walked into the tall grass for several steps.

"…?" Red doesn't understand why Oak is so concerned, or why Oak had bothered to run for so long to the point of exhaustion; watching as Oak catches his breath with heavy panting, Red hears something let out a low, nasally hiss towards him from somewhere.

"Red! Don't you understand it's dangerous to go into the tall grass without a Pokémon of your own? What if you got hurt?!" Oak asks Red, as Red simply shifts his gaze towards Oak; his expression not indicative of any kind of emotion other than a dull sense of indifference right now. Oak, looking at Red more carefully after catching his breath, is quick to notice a shine in the grass as something's eyes pierce through out into the open.

"Red! Look out!" Oak tells him as he reaches for something in his pocket, all the while Red, rather casually and bluntly, sidesteps to the right as something lunges out of the grass with a fiery smoke coming from its trail behind it; its tail covered in a red flame, covered in orange skin with a yellowish underbelly, having bluish eyes and an off, asymmetrical marking on its left arm of a dirt red color, the creature moves to swipe at Oak with razor sharp claws that slice through his lab coat like sharp, metallic blades cutting through fabric.

"Raaah!" The small, but feisty and powerful for its size creature calls out towards Oak as Red observes; Oak falls backward, landing on his rear, as the creature's eyes are in the form of feral slits right now as its breathing is heavy albeit quiet. From behind it, however, Red can be heard shuffling through his pockets as the small reptile looks over towards him; its gaze calming at the sight of a small, delicately wrapped candy made of honey and nuts is in Red's hand, as he offers it to the small reptilian.

"Rah?" The creature questions, as Oak takes the chance to grab a small, red and white colored sphere from his pocket to his hand and throw it at the creature in question; the sphere opens up in half, as it sucks in the fiery reptile as a bright light into it, and then closes around it to encase it inside.

 _One shake, two shakes, three shakes… *click*_

Oak quietly catches his breath after an intense confrontation; his clothing torn to shred in places, as Red puts the treat away in his pocket as he looks at Oak.

"Let me guess; this is the part where you take me to your lab and give me a Pokémon, correct?" Red asks incredibly bluntly in terms of wording and overall, deadpan tone, as Oak looks at him in surprise.

"I wouldn't get so cocky if I were you; I already have my grandson for that, but do you not realize how much you could have harmed yourself by going out there without any Pokémon?" Oak says to Red as he stands up to try and scold him for his recklessness; Red simply shrugs it off as his deadpan expression remains intact.

"I heard from my mom of a Charmander stealing from the neighbor's crops in search of food, particularly stealing from Daisy's honey trees in search of either honey or nuts." Red explains to Oak, as Red pulls the treat back from out of his pocket.

"I intended to lure the Charmander over to you in hopes you could deduce if anything is wrong with it or not, or even why a Charmander is found so far away from Mt. Silver." Red tells Oak further about his original plan, before putting the treat away again and looking at the Poké Ball with Charmander in it in Oak's hand. "Besides; I was honestly hoping to take Charmander for myself so long as it didn't already belong to anyone, but it appears that won't be the case." Red says to Oak, as he moves to walk back south towards his house, as Oak simply stares at him in a questioning, somewhat impressed gaze, before Oak moves to place a hand on Red's shoulder.

"Hold on." Oak interrupts Red's train of thought, "Perhaps you're more than worthy of this Charmander than you let yourself on to believe, though I want an honest answer from you, if you'll be so polite to answer an old fool like me." Oak asks of Red, as Red looks over his shoulder and looks at Oak with a questioning gaze.

"What did you plan on doing with Charmander if you were to have caught it yourself as planned?" Oak asks Red, as Red simply stares at Oak with silence; so many possibilities of what he could say to Oak in regards to possible plans, since owning Charmander would officially make him a Pokémon Trainer in some aspect no matter what he did with it. He could very easily just stay home with Charmander and raise it as a pet, and nothing more; the fierce battle instinct displayed by Charmander earlier, though, pretty much made that idea out of the question.

"I would've originally raised it as a pet, at least until I could figure out what I honestly want to do with myself in the future; seeing Charmander's battle instinct, however, I can tell that perhaps I would've became a Pokémon Trainer, if merely to sate Charmander's physical health needs and to make sure it gets the best care possible for an energetic Pokémon such as it." Red tells Oak, as Oak closes his eyes as he takes the time to think about Red's answer.

' _Hmmm… I know how a colleague of mine would respond to this; he would say something along the lines of how Red could change the world with the idea of becoming a trainer, and yet, here I am wondering if-'_

A loud, ringing sound coming from Oak's side catches him off guard; moving to grab it, revealing a device called a Pokégear, Oak opens it up to answer it, unprepared for what happens next.

"YO GRAMPS!" Blue's shouting can be heard over the Pokégear's transmission, as Oak simply sighs with an exasperated tone.

"Oh for the love of- Yes, Blue?" Oak asks, as Blue simply growls from his end of the call.

"Don't sass me, gramps! I've been waiting almost 10 minutes for you to get back here so I could finally get my first Pokémon!" Blue yells at the top of his lungs, before being interrupted by feminine coughing beside him, as Green clears her throat as Blue looks over his shoulder at her.

"Oh, and also; why is Green here and dressed as if looking for a prom date? Doesn't she know I don't have the time for her unless she gets a Pokémon for herself?!" Blue asks Oak, as Green simply growls in response to Blue's question.

"Well for one, you load of Tauros sh- Never mind; look, just wait patiently for Oak to get back to the lab, and maybe, just maybe, he'll be kind enough to give you your Pokémon to reward your continued patience, and just maybe I'll even let you take me out on a date if you can beat me in my first battle as well!" Green yells at Blue over the call, as Red looks at Oak all startled, as Oak looks back at him with a nod.

"Relax! Both of you! I'm coming on over right now!" Oak says as he hurriedly hangs up, before looking at Red as he gestures for him to follow, as Red acknowledges the gesture and follows Oak back towards his lab.

* * *

By the time Oak and Red arrived at the lab, Blue is busy shooting daggers through his eyes over towards an equally grumpy Green; Red simply looks incredibly bored in his expression as he stands perfectly still between the two to keep them apart, as Oak looks at the three with concern, as he lets out a sigh as before him, three spheres much like the ones he had caught Charmander in are present on a table before them.

'I just hope these three won't be the death of me…' Oak thinks to himself, as he looks at three in question. "Now then, you three all know why you're here with these Poké Balls presented to you, correct?" Oak asks, as Red, Blue, and Green focus their attention on Oak as they simultaneously nod.

"Good; then you know what awaits you next. Normally, had this been any other day, I would've allowed you to freely choose your Pokémon, but considering the incident with Red before I had gotten back, I'm allowing him the first choice. Red, you still desire that Charmander from earlier, correct?" Oak asks, as Red nods silently, as Red moves to grab the Poké Ball on the table containing it, and opening it up to reveal the Charmander from minutes ago.

Charmander sniffs the air feistily, as it looks over at Red as Red hands it the honey and seed crafted treat from earlier, as Charmander sniffs his hand before quickly moving to grab the treat in its mouth and begin munching away at it as it lets out a soothed, more cheerful hiss. Oak, as well as the curious Blue and Green, now take the chance to have a look at Charmander's oddly marked left arm.

"Hmm… What do you suppose that could be there?" Blue asks, legitimately interested in knowing, as Green nods.

"It appears to be some kind of birthmark, I'd say." Green suggests, as Oak shrugs.

"For as much as I am a Pokémon Professor, I'm afraid even I'm confused as to what this marking could be; it appears too big to be a simple birthmark, and quite frankly I don't even know why a Charmander would live so far away from Mt. Silver in the first place anyways." Oak tells the two, as Red simply nods.

"Like I said; it was trying to steal from crops and gardens prior to today, so if I were to guess, it's probably incredibly lost." Red says to Oak, as Oak sighs as he nods in confirmation.

"Honestly, that appears to be the only conclusion I can come to with this particular Charmander over any other I've seen." Oak says, as he snaps his fingers as he looks at Blue and Green to get their attention.

"Now then; I'm not going to tell you which of the remaining two is in which Poké Ball; I'm just going to have you surprise each other by whomever picks one first claiming that Poké Ball first, and no chance being given to get a different one." Oak tells the two, as Blue shoots him a glare.

"Gramps, how could you say that? I wanted to have the first choice today! You even told me I would!" Blue says to Oak, as Oak gives him a stern look, causing Blue to back down.

"Blue Oak; I did not promise that you would have the honor of the first choice, nor did you hurrying here before anyone else nor starting an argument with Green give you any such right at the moment either. Consider this a warning for the future; do not start an argument like that around me again, alright?" Oak scolds Blue, as he looks as Blue sighs and closes his eyes briefly.

"Sorry, gramps." Blue says, as he opens his eyes and grabs for the first Poké Ball he could reach the closest, and opens it to reveal a blue colored Pokémon with a brown shell and a puffed up tail, small claws on its toes and hands, and a sharp, beak-like mouth and brown eyes.

"Alright then, Squirtle, looks like you're mine." Blue says to his newly acquired Squirtle, as Green sighs as she grabs the remaining Poké Ball, opening it up and revealing a small, green colored quadruped with a massive plant bud on its backside and having red eyes and small ears.

"Alright; I'm satisfied with Bulbasaur here." Green says as she smiles brightly, as Bulbasaur jumps up and down cheerfully in response, as Oak clears his throat to catch everyone's attention.

"Now then, with that all settled, is there anything else I can help you three with? If not, I recommend taking your Pokémon through Route 1 up north to Viridian City; the exercise could do all three of you and your new Pokémon a good treatment." Oak asks before offering the suggestion, as Red, Blue, and Green look at each other and all three nod.

"Viridian City it is!" Blue says.

"I could definitely stock up on some supplies for my garden there, I guess." Green says.

"Very well, as for you, Red?" Oak says as he looks at Red, as Red very lightly gives a smile towards him before looking down at Charmander, as Charmander finishes the treat after spending a few minutes munching on it.

"I'm going to get to know you more as we head there, Charmander."

 _ **To Be Continued.**_

* * *

 **AN: At this point it's official; I've missed writing for** ** _Pokémon_ so badly that I've been desperately wanting to get what is officially the first installment chronologically in the _Truth and Ideals_ timeline as of right now. Also, as you can tell by some of my writing choices here, certain rather unpopular head canons I used to have back in the day are being completely disregarded and retcon'd as far away from here as possible; these will also be present in the remastered version of _Truth and Ideals_ for that matter. As for everything else, standard prologue for me nowadays at this rate; to think my prologue pages used to be too short for their own good, yeesh.**

 **Now then, you're probably wondering about the choice of title; unfortunately I cannot tell you why I chose it just yet, but I do assure you it'll be somewhat related to _Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon_ in some capacity.**


	2. Chapter 1: White

**Starlight Ablaze Chapter 1:**

* * *

"So now that we officially have Pokémon, what do we do next?" Green asks Blue, as Blue looks at her and shrugs.

"I guess go off to Route 1 and train, isn't that right, Red?" Blue asks, only to find Red's presence in Oak's lab to be effectively nonexistent. "… Red?" Blue asks out in a tone trying to hide his concern.

Red and his Charmander are nowhere to be seen in the lab; Oak looks around in confusion, only just now noticing Red is gone from the room. Green looks over at Blue, concern filling her gaze, as Blue moves to grab his Poké Ball for Squirtle from his side and return Squirtle into it.

Unfortunately, Squirtle seems to disagree, as it jumps out of the way of the Poké Ball's return laser it emits from the center of it. Green looks at Squirtle, and then over at Bulbasaur and notices something.

"Blue, I think it would be wise if we allow the new Pokémon some air before we begin adventuring, okay?" Green says, as Blue looks over towards Green and sighs.

"Not the first option I had in mind, but alright." Blue says, as he looks down towards Squirtle; watching as the Tiny Turtle Pokémon gives him a bit of a scowl in response to the attempts to be returned to its Poké Ball. Blue, about to speak up, looks over at Green from the corner of his eyes.

"Uh… Is Squirtle a boy or a girl?" Blue whispers to Green, as Green raises an eye.

"Runs in the family, doesn't it?" Green remarks, as she promptly gets a scowl from Blue in direct response. "I'm just kidding, alright?" Green says as she holds her hands up to gesture him to calm down, lightly chuckling as she watches Blue calm down a tiny bit.

"She's a girl, Blue!" Green says as she quietly stops chuckling, all the while she and Bulbasaur begin to walk out of the laboratory; Blue is left behind to be utterly bewildered by Green's simplistic answer to his question, and yet even Blue couldn't even believe it himself.

 _((So are you just going to stand there and wait while everyone else gets another step ahead?))_

Blue snaps himself out of his train of thought, quickly bolting out of the door while only hastily managing to wave his grandfather goodbye at the last possible second. Oak didn't seem too fazed, before hearing his PC begin ringing as to indicate someone calling him. Heading over to answer it, Oak is surprised to be greeted with an email.

"Professor Oak, my old friend. I do believe I'd like your presence for the Pokémon League by autumn's eve. The Elite Four say it's serious this time."

* * *

Red is walking back up north, towards Route 1, almost in a way in which he more or less disregarded the entire encounter with Oak, Blue, and Green; Charmander walking by his side is the only visible difference from how he had previously tried to leave Palette Town, versus how he's currently making the attempt once again.

Green is quick to see his in Red's path towards Route 1; her expression visibly scrunches when she realizes Red's distance from town indicates he went straight to the northern exit directly from Oak's lab, rather than make any plans to stop and inform anyone he'll be leaving. As Blue catches up with Green, he catches his breath as he sees Red on the move.

"So what makes him so special? He's just in a hurry like everyone else!" Blue says to Green, only for Green to stop him at that as she places a hand on Blue's shoulder, and giving him a stern look; a serious gaze fills her eyes, one of frustration, true, but especially of concern.

Only Blue would be able to recognize the signals that Green is giving him right now, as his expression turns serious as he looks back towards his house.

"I'll go tell my sister to get an extra map ready for Red in case he comes back; you check on Red's mom and see if she knows where Red is going or not." Blue tells Green with a more casual, but affirmative tone, as Green nods as she moves towards Red's house, all the while Blue heads into his house to talk with Daisy.

Green, meanwhile, walks up to the front door of Red's house, as Bulbasaur walks alongside her up to the garden of the household; the various flowers look like they're in serious need of attention. Weeds are growing everywhere in the garden around Red's house, and Bulbasaur looks over towards Green with concern. Speaking up in a semi-frog-like croak, Bulbasaur notices Green look down at it and look at the garden and yelp in surprise.

"Uh… Bulbs? Can you handle the garden while I check in with Red's mother, please?" Green asks Bulbasaur, as Green knocks on the door, as Bulbasaur looks back at the garden, before walking over towards the nearest patch of flowers, filled to the brim with weeds; weeds which Bulbasaur opens its surprisingly large mouth and begins munching on and uprooting from the ground.

Green finally hears someone, or, rather, something open the door to Red's house; the door slowly creeks open, as the door wasn't even fully shut let alone locked at all. Green walks inside as she looks around at the living room, as Green notices a relatively old fashioned television in the living room, and the aged form of a woman with brunette hair at a table with a low light, and a picture frame in front of her. Other than that, however, she was sitting all by herself in this house.

"Madam…?" Green quietly asks, as she can't help but notice Red's mother sitting in a rather quiet room like this; the picture frame becomes clear to her, though, in that it's a picture of Red's mother with an infantile Red in her arms, all wide eyed and adorable, and a much more cheerful woman that Red's mother used to be.

"All boys leave home someday, it's what they say on TV every day." The older woman speaks to herself, in a bit of a dry, monotone voice. Green moves to slowly approach the woman, speaking more louder and clearer this time.

"Madam?" Green asks; she honestly wish she knew the name of Red's mother, since that could possibly help right now. Regardless, the older woman still remains motionless, only to shift away from Green's direction as Green makes another attempt to approach.

Green gets the signal that she isn't welcome here through Red's mother moving away from her, and it becomes apparent with her repeating her sentence from before, that Green will more than likely need to hurry after Red.

* * *

"You do realize I would still give the map to Red even if you had told me otherwise, right?" Daisy says to Blue, as Blue grumbles a bit.

"What do you even see in him, anyways? Is this just to spite me for being so self-centered, according to you anyways?" Blue asks of Daisy, as Daisy chuckles.

"Honestly, I'm still having trouble believing that Green isn't the one who told you to tell me to get a map ready for Red. Isn't she supposed to be the one with the pants in the relationship?" Daisy asks, to which Blue averts his gaze as his face becomes all red.

"… She doesn't even wear actual pants whenever she dons that form hugging dress anyways…" Blue murmurs to himself, in hopes Daisy would just forget the topic of her own little crush on Red.

"Speaking of which… Has Red's mother been outside at all? Her garden looks rather poorly attended to. Like literally it's so overflowing with weeds that I half expected wild Pokémon to be hiding in there!" Daisy tells Blue, as Blue looks out the window real quick and doesn't seem to find anything wrong looking over towards the garden just outside of Red's house.

All he could see is a very, very plump and content Bulbasaur; calmly and lazily munching on a few smaller weeds that were left astray when they were uprooted with the others.

"… Doesn't look like a jungle anymore because of Green's Bulbasaur, if you ask me." Blue says to Daisy, as Daisy gives a quick look over to Red's garden in the window, as Green walks out of the house; moving to pick Bulbasaur up into her arms and walk off.

"Well you'd better hurry and go pick up Oak's Parcel for me at Viridian City while I burn you a copy of the Kanto Region's map. He's been waiting for it to be delivered, but the Poké Mart has sent out a deliveryman that nobody has been able to locate over the past few days it seems." Daisy says, as Blue sighs as he looks over towards Green heading for Route 1.

"I'll go pick it up, then."

* * *

Red is walking along Route 1; the tall grass is more plentiful around here, as he and Charmander are quick to notice. Red doesn't pay it too much mind, though, although that doesn't stop nature from giving him a sharp reminder of what lies in the tall grass.

A Pidgey, a small Pokémon akin to a bird, jumps out from the grass towards Red and Charmander; being so small, as well as having very small built wings, means that Pidgey is very poor at flying, so its agility will not be too noticeably agile.

At the same time, Charmander isn't going to have this easy; sure, a powerful attack with claws as sharp as metal will help, but it would have to get close to Pidgey to use it; Pidgey makes the first move of making an attempt to fly forward in a full body tackle; causing itself to crash into Charmander and knock them a few feet away from where Charmander was standing before.

Charmander grabs Pidgey by the head and grasps at it with its claws; moving to shove Pidgey in front of itself, before swiping away twice with horizontal slashes with its claws; the cuts didn't go very deep, at least not yet, but that didn't stop Pidgey from retaliating with a burst of dirt kicked from the ground with its small legs kicking and wings flapping.

The air becomes covered in layers of dust, dirt and sand, as Pidgey is nowhere to be seen in this; Charmander becomes eerily still; cocking its head to the sides in a sudden motion as if trying to hear for Pidgey's next move. Wing flapping can be heard heading in Charmander's direction, as Charmander's claws begin to glow a bright, steel gray as Charmander points itself in the direction of the sound and slashes at the air with claws formed of red and gray energy forming from its hands, in hopes of striking Pidgey from the front.

Only for Charmander to recoil from the pain when Pidgey instead crashes into it from the back; it had set up the area for Charmander to miss and be less accurate with its attacks, as Pidgey's tackle sends Charmander to the ground; covered head to toe in bruises as its being knocked aside. Charmander looks ready to give in, but the fierce, feral look in its eye gives Red all he needs to see in that Charmander has one more trick up its sleeve.

Charmander's tail begins to set itself ablaze; normally, that is already the case, but Charmander's tail began to intensify in its burn. Not only does the flame begin to burn to the point the flame grows in size, but the flame begins to intensify in temperature to where its color changes from red to blue, and then straight to a blazing white light that shines across the entire vicinity.

Pidgey is about to rush into Charmander a third time; its eyes were too keen for their own good, as it doesn't even notice the brighter light from the flame on Charmander's tail. Charmander, in response to Pidgey's approach, begins to whip its tail from side to side in a 360 degree spin, before launching itself into the air as the entire ground gains the outline of a star appears on the ground, as the outline focuses on an intense ray of light shining upon it from Charmander's tail.

"RAAAH!" Charmander lets out a tiny roar, as Charmander absorbs all of the flame from its tail into its body, before suddenly exhaling a powerful, white inferno of flames down upon Pidgey; the flame breaking apart and scattering into numerous, smaller flames as cinders of the larger flame, leaving impact craters in the ground upon burning up entirely.

Pidgey feels the intensity of the burn as the starlight ablaze fire burns off its own feathers, the flame dissipating as Pidgey emerges from it completely scorched and dazed from the attack. It tries to take a few steps towards only a mildly stunned Red, before falling to the ground, chin on the floor unconscious.

Red, grabbing a Premier Ball from his bag, brushing some dust off of its surface, before tapping the middle button of it onto Pidgey's roasted body causing the homing laser on the Poké Ball to let out a small, yet audible beep that doesn't immediately register Pidgey to try and catch.

[Poké Ball functions disrupted; target was-]

Red forces the manual override on the Premier Ball by opening it up on his own, and guiding the tracking laser from within the Poké Ball to manually lock on to Pidgey, and proceed to drag it into its core chamber a digitized red beam of energy, before Red manually closes the Premier Ball.

 _One shake, two shakes, three shakes… *click*_

[Manual Override Commands Accepted; subject Pidgey is now caught.] The Premier Ball's monotone, pre-installed voice commands say in regards to Pidgey now officially being Red's. Charmander looks at Red, as Red looks down at Charmander and gives it a honey candy treat to reward it. Charmander quickly begins munching away, all the while Blue and Green can be heard catching up to Red.

"Red, what was that lightshow we saw coming from here?!" Green asks, as Blue looks rather stunned by what he had seen from a distance from Red's Charmander.

 _((Do you think we should ask him about it?))_

' _No; let us proceed to Viridian City; we have to be certain instead of basing this off of a quick judgment.'_

Blue shakes off his thoughts as he focuses on what he can see right now, which is just Red, his Charmander, and Green fawning over said Charmander in a kneeling position. Blue looks at Red with suspicion.

"So why'd you head straight for Viridian without even stopping off at home first?" Blue asks Red, as Green gets up while holding Charmander in her arms and gives Red a bit of a scowl.

"Your mother is literally worried sick over you, and you didn't even say goodbye when leaving Palette-" Green begins to tell off Red, only for Red to simply take Charmander back with the Poké Ball he was caught in, as Red simply walks off back towards the north. Green audibly growls in disgust with what she's seeing right now, as she moves to grab Blue by the collar of his shirt as she glares at him with tears in her eyes.

"You will help me with dealing with Red, but we're not going to be doing it your way; we're going to be doing it my way; the peaceful way!" Green informs Blue, before setting him down on the ground as Blue looks at Green in shock, a blush present on his face as he nods, before moving to stand up and follow Green after Red.

"So why do you think Red is behaving this way? He's never acted this amoral before!" Blue asks, as Green shakes her head and shrugs.

"I don't even think he even realizes he's being this way; for all he knows, he's acting perfectly normal in his eyes! I mean have you even seen his father beforehand in the neighborhood?!" Green says, to which Blue visibly cringes a bit.

"Please, don't remind me of him. He gave me nightmares when I was just a baby…" Blue says, as Green thinks about that reminder of Blue's thoughts on Red's missing father.

"Do you think that's why Red's mother is acting so… disturbed?" Green asks, as Blue shrugs.

"Look, Green, you haven't met the guy like Red or I have; if anything Red's behavior seems to me like a bad omen is about to come to Palette Town, and Red is doing whatever he can to prepare for when the storm is to arrive." Blue says, as Red stops and looks back at them.

"So you two want in on the secret about to happen soon, don't you? I can't blame you; you're both reading me like a book in terms of figuring out what you're speculating is true." Red says, as he looks at a nearby sign post indicating Viridian City is just up a large hill directly ahead.

"So how do you expect us to do anything about it? We've only just gotten our Pokémon today! Most other trainers get them at least four years earlier than we did." Blue says to Red, as Green nods.

"He's got a point; besides, I'm honestly very concerned about what's going to happen, but most importantly, when is it going to happen?" Green asks, as Red looks back at her and Blue while closing his eyes; his faces relaxes as he lets out a sigh.

"Look; you two will need to focus on training your Pokémon all day to worry about what's going to happen tonight. If you want to get involved in this mess, than it's your own faults if you get hurt, because you two shouldn't have been involved in the first place, understood?" Red asks Blue and Green rather harshly, as the duo nod to Red.

"Look, Red, calm down and just try and explain from the beginning; what are we dealing with?" Green asks, as Blue shudders a bit.

"I really hope it isn't your dad…" Blue admits, as Red lets out a very low chuckle.

"Oh trust me; you'd rather it be my dad than who or what is going to appear tonight back home." Red begins to tell the two, as he stops himself, and looks around at the outskirts of Viridian City, to make sure nobody else is nearby, before he finally asks the big question.

"Have you two ever heard of a group called the 0Ω?"


	3. Chapter 2: Viridian City

**AN: Chapter updates have been going slow, not just because of my writer's block that I'm hoping this story will get me out of. I've got various daily things on my various games I need to do, I have to set time aside to play my Nintendo Switch so I can eventually help my brother with Breath of the Wild, and then I've got to also set time aside to chat with friends and especially my girlfriend. All in all, I'm a very busy guy all around; that's not even getting into the other things I do besides writing for that matter as well. I hope you guys will be understanding and patient with me after so many stories of mine have been delayed for too long.**

 **Starlight Ablaze Chapter 2:**

* * *

' _Energy readings were off of the scale, a few moments ago.'_

 _ **((Can you trace them?))**_

A figure in a heavy, brown cloak observes over the grasslands of Route 1; witnessing the aftermath of Red's battle with a Pidgey; at first, nothing would be too out of the ordinary for such a sight, had it not been for this strange essence left behind in the wake of Charmander's powerful attack against Pidgey.

The figure, seemingly teleporting with each step it takes, walks over to the battlefield's remnants and notes the burnt, scorched area; a semi-dense, white dust fills the air, as the being inhales a breath to take in the dust and determine something.

' _Very faint; multi-color to the point of mere basal material, but indeed basal material for a powerful crystal nevertheless.'_ The figure determines from the scent and taste of the dust, as the figure moves to reveal its left hand; three digits alone are present on the hand, as a strange, blue and gold device is linked to the figure's wrist.

With a wave of its hand, the figure moves to collect the dust fragments into the device on its wrist; in an open hole on the device, a crystal of some sorts slowly begins to form, before ultimately shattering into dust again, as the figure heavily sighs.

' _Not enough material. Typical, for such an unevolved Pokémon to be able to generate; still, however, the fact a Pokémon can generate this basal material at all needs further investigation.'_ The figure ponders about Red's Charmander, before concentrating on its own surroundings at the moment and detecting movement.

' _Foolish, simply foolish; how does a human get lost so easily in a place like this? I expected better; I will be departing for now, mother; look to it that the two twins find their way to Pewter City by dawn.'_

 _ **((And what of the Charmander that this new trainer possesses; a Charmander does not so easily generate basal material for this kind of crystal, don't you think?))**_

' _I'll study him later; right now I do not wish to be spotted; farewell, mother.'_

In a snap of its fingers, the figure completely disappears from view as if it had never existed; a lone, straggling human wearing a uniform approaches the area, as they look around and see their surroundings, spotting the distinct sign just before a tall hill in the distance saying Viridian City is just up ahead.

"Ah; finally, I can report back to the Poké Mart after having been zoning out for days; still, I wonder, why did I get lost so easily, and for so long at that?"

* * *

Upon arriving in Viridian City, Red, Blue, and Green all stop just outside of a tall, red roofed building with incredibly clean, yet also incredibly strong and durable, Plexiglas windows and automated Plexiglas door. Sitting down on a bench, the three are quietly munching away at some rice balls; Red made little sound of any kind, taking fairly small bites. Blue ate his rice balls in a frantic hurry, whereas Green eats hers calmly but not at a slow pace like Red is doing. After finishing her current rice ball, Green speaks up first.

"So, it's nice that there's a sale on these at a small stand just in the park like this." Green says, trying to strike a conversation that doesn't quickly lead into awkwardness. Blue scarfs down another rice ball as he very hastily chews on it for a few moments before swallowing.

"Yeah, well I'm glad they definitely made them cheap enough to afford in a large bundle. My sister doesn't buy these for me often enough." Blue says, as Red sighs a bit as he finishes eating, though a few rice balls remain as Red quietly wraps them into a bag.

"Well at least they're better than day after day of ordering takeout." Red remarks, as Green sighs.

"You have a lot of issues, Red; we need to start working on them." Green says, as Blue nods.

"Yeah, we'll inevitably have to deal with your dad sooner or later, but honestly, if you want my honest opinion on going at him with just the most basic class Pokémon we'll be having within the next day, in addition to our starters, I'll say we're all f-"

"Blue!" Green turns to face him as she reprimands him for what he almost said.

"What?!" Blue says, holding up his hands in defense; "Not my fault the guy is a jerk!" Blue says, as Green sighs and rubs her temples a bit.

"You guys both are going to drive me nuts on our little journey, aren't you?" Green asks, as Red silently gazes her way.

"Highly possible." Red says, simply, as Green groans from the answer.

"I figured as much; at least I'm the presence of two guys I'd rather be hanging out with." Green says, as Blue chuckles lightly.

"So… Why'd you pause when asking us about this group called 'Zero Omega' anyways?" Blue asks Red, as Red raises an eye.

"That's… not even close to how it's actually pronounced…"

"That's what I know it's spelled with regardless, that, and it's far easier to say than whatever it is normally supposed to sound like." Blue tells Red, as Green looks over her shoulder to face Red.

"How do you manage to pronounce it correctly so well?" Green asks, as Red gives her a look from aside.

"I don't, actually; my dad never said it consistently due to how tired he becomes once he finally comes home from work every few days." Red says, as Green raises an eye.

"So if he comes home regularly, then why does your mom look like she's suffering from PTSD?" Green asks, as Red shrugs.

"She knew this day was inevitable no matter how hard she tried to delay it. I think it's for the best if I'm gone from the household for a while, even considering what would happen tonight." Red says, as Blue looks at Red with a rather wide eyed glare.

"Then why exactly did you bring up this Omega group in the first place?" Blue asks in a harsh tone, as Red closes his eyes, takes in a deep breath, and lets out a calm sigh.

"Green, is it? If you were a group of rogue Pokémon trainers that make even the likes of Team Rocket refuse to negotiate with your due to your lack of ethics; do you think they would honestly actually care about what happens in Palette Town at all?" Red asks Green, as Green looks at him with a serious gaze, before taking the moment to think.

Bulbasaur pops out of its Poké Ball beside her and looks around at the grassy area where the park bench is, as Blue decides to let Squirtle out of his Poké Ball as well, as Squirtle lets out a loud yawn before curling up into its shell and beginning to snooze. As Red lets out Charmander, Green regains her composure for the moment and thinks; Palette Town is an incredibly small town in the grand scheme of things, which is why she had never even seen this Team Rocket group ever go there.

Still, though, the thought of an organization which even Team Rocket refuses to want to negotiate with? The idea seems completely absurd; as she knew them, money is money for Team Rocket, no matter where it comes from. Then again, she has never personally met any of Team Rocket's goons at all, so she wouldn't really know what their motivation even is.

"It's a… troubling thought, but I do believe you've got a point; an organization of such caliber would leave Palette Town alone." Green says, as Red nods.

"So I suppose you're both ready to get to Route 2 after we stock up on supplies, correct?" Red asks, as Green nods, as Blue gives Red a glare.

"Oh I'm not going anywhere on Route 2 until I check out the Pokémon League to the west!" Blue says, as Blue gets up, picks up Squirtle, and moves to walk towards the western pathways of Viridian City.

"Hey! Call me if they reject you from entering, okay?" Green hollers to Blue, as Blue waves to her without turning around; his Pokégear in hand as he acknowledges her request. Green lets out an exhausted sigh, as she looks at Red, briefly looking him over, before grabbing him by his shirt collar.

"So then tell me; what do you actually want us to do instead of a wild Yungoos chase?!" Green asks, as Red blinks without showing much emotion.

"Don't you mean Golduck chase?" Red retorts, as Green growls before shaking Red back and forth.

"No! I mean Yungoos because Yungoos are near impossible to find in Kanto and- why am I even having to explain this to you?!" Green rants, before asking Red about the last bit; Red's eyes dull as he parts his lips to answer.

"Why do you care over what I decide to do with my life?"

Red asks, as the question causes Green to stop moving Red around and gently lay him against the bench, as Green looks down a bit to avert her gaze from his.

"I… No, it's nothing." Green lies, as Red raises an eye.

"You wouldn't be shaking me so violently without reason, Green; I know you too well."

"And you expect me to know a lot about you as well?!" Green snaps as she looks back up at Red, with tears forming in her eyes.

"I barely know who you even are, Red, at least who you're trying to be in the present, rather than the sweet little kid I met at a daycare so many years ago before I could even talk. You're different, not because you want to be, but it honestly feels like you're trying to hide something from Blue and I." Green says, as she tries her best to keep her composure strong.

"You know, I think we should just check out the Poké Mart so that we can change the subject for now, alright?" Red asks, as Green shoots him a glare.

"And why do you think I'll agree to that so-"

At that moment, an incredibly high pitch, sharp noise is heard throughout the area; sounding like it scrapes against a stainless steel wall with powerful claws, the numerous, differing sounds of an electronic beep being heard nearby, seemingly in some kind of rhythm of chaos.

Green's eyes widen as her iris' shrink, all the while Red moves to put his hand over Green's mouth to keep her quiet; the droning sounds continue, as what can be interpreted as a pulsation of some organic and technology nature can be heard; Red holds his breath, all the while he hears something, very, very quietly letting out a very low moan, bordering on coughing and wheezing in pain.

' _What are those sounds coming from?'_ Green thinks to herself, due to Red covering her mouth to make sure she stays quiet; whatever it is, however, and due to Red's actions, appeared to be very, very nearby somewhere.

Over towards where Blue currently is with Squirtle, Squirtle can hear something off moving in the area; Blue moves to open his Pokégear up to try and call Green as to ask what that strange noise is, only to be greeted with static.

"Great, just what I need with all of this unnerving sound going on." Blue says, as he stops cold in his tracks when he hears something letting out a very low, human-like moan of sorts, alongside some kind of rumbling clicking to accompany it. Blue looks around in the nearby area, wondering what kind of creature was moving on through. Quietly he looks around, slowly, to determine what is moving nearby.

At the sound of a large amount of rustling in the nearby grass, Blue moves to instinctively grab a Poké Ball on his belt, only to not realize for a moment that he does not yet possess any spare Poké Balls just yet. Realizing this, and hearing the beginning of a loud, yet low in pitch, droning sound, Blue returns Squirtle to her Poké Ball and frantically heads back to Viridian City so he can head straight for the Poké Mart.

* * *

"Hey! Do you come from Palette Town?"

After a few minutes of waiting out the foreboding noise, Red and Green headed to the Poké Mart as their next destination, as they manage to beat Blue there, but at the same time, haven't gotten a word back from him. Red and Green, regardless, are surprised to see someone asking for the two of them so quickly upon entering the blue roofed building.

"Yes, we come from Palette Town." Green answers the guy at the counter of the small shop, as she and Red walk up to the counter to check as to why they were called over.

"Alright, good to hear; you see, a delivery man had gotten lost on Route 1 for a few days now, and I'm wondering if by any chance you can manage to find him. If by any chance he returns before you get back, there's no need to worry; we've got a backup of a package that needs to go to Professor Oak on hand, since we knew strange activity was happening in the area so we planned in advance for it." The clerk at the counter tells Red and Green, as Green blinks.

"Strange activity, as in, possibly hearing strange sounds outside nearby the city?" Green asks, as the clerk nods.

"That is the least of your worries, check the telly over there, and learn a bit more." The clerk says, as Red and Green both look over towards a large, albeit very outdated, television set behind a glass protector showing two reporters on screen in the middle of a conversation.

"So in other news, paranormal activity has so far been observed in Cerulean City, Pewter City, Viridian City, and now people are coming in with reports that the rural Palette Town is seeing witnesses of these strange activities. Be it unusual noises, disappearances, or strange people wearing white and purple bodysuits being detected in the area, viewers are to be advised to be careful when treading the routes in-between these locations."

"Correct; always travel in groups, always check in and sleep at night, preferably a Pokémon Center or local inn, but if absolutely necessary pack camping supplies for any trainers out there looking to travel the region. Keep valuables well protected at all times, and make sure your Pokémon are in good condition to ensure personal protection in case any of these mystery men prove to be hostile."

"Especially since Team Rocket is also roaming around; Team Rocket are opportunistic at most, but the recent reports of these white and purple clad people have been causing Team Rocket to frantically head to the nearest sighting of them in search of leftovers of whatever the former group are looking for."

"Right then, with that out of the way, we're looking into possibly establishing contact with this group to determine their intentions. Until then, it is advised everyone steer clear of them whenever spotted."

As Red and Green watch the television report go on, neither of the two had noticed that Blue had long since entered the building, panting heavily behind the two.

"Poké Balls! I need Poké Balls! How many do you have on sale?" Blue hurriedly asks of the clerk after slamming his hands on the counter to catch his attention; Red and Green snapping back to look at the semi-panicked Blue the whole while.

"S-Sure, we have 10 on sale with a Premier Ball bonus attached to it."

"I'll take it!" Blue says as he grabs his wallet and slams the small amount of bills and coins onto the counter, meanwhile the clerk is shocked as he moves to grab a bag of Poké Balls from the back of the counter, with the Premier Ball grouped with them as Blue quickly grabs his purchases and heads out the door, only to bump into a man walking in exhausted as Blue screams bloody mary over bumping into who only turned out to be another clerk.

"E-Excuse me, Blue Oak?! Perhaps you can be of service to me and deliver a package for me!" The arriving clerk asks of the scared half to death Blue, as Blue slowly blinks, eyes wide and shrunken irises and all, as Blue looks over at Red and Green just staring at him in confusion.

"S-Sure… Just… everyone stop looking at me like that, seriously…" Blue slowly says, as he looks over at Red and Green; he doesn't bother giving either of them a glare at all, as he walks out of the Poké Mart with Red and Green slowly following behind.

"Just be sure to not tell my grandpa about everything you just saw in there; nothing has been going right the moment I had stepped foot onto Route 1 with you guys." Blue brings up, as he stops in his tracks as he sees some people up ahead in front of him, as Red and Green stop as well to observe two strange people before them.

People in white and purple suits.

* * *

 **AN: So you guys might be wondering what I think about the newly announced core series games, considering the last time I worked on a Pokémon fic that a new set of core series games were announced part way through. I'm actually alright with the new games, _Pokémon Let's Go! Pikachu_ and _Pokémon Let's Go! Eevee_ , considering this'll be the first time since _Gale of Darkness_ in which we've had any console game for the core series in a story mode fashion, although thankfully, these games are being developed by Game Freak just like all of the other core series games. At least I can feel safe in the reassurance that provides.**


	4. Chapter 3: Fighting Fire with Fire

**AN: As to why I didn't make a joke about the infamous "jelly donuts" from the dub, I do not dignify stupidity with acknowledgment in such a regard. What I do dignify is any stupidity that arises in a fashion I can actually use without coming across as incredibly forced.**

 **Starlight Ablaze Chapter 3:**

* * *

{You three} The shorter, seemingly pudgier of the two dressed in white and purple "speaks"; their voice is very muffled by their own uniform, with only the glowing, magenta eye visible through their visor making it clear this is a woman speaking. Red, Blue, and Green flinch a bit when the other person beside her shifts in place to slouch in his stance a little; even with said slouch, the man beside her looked incredibly tall.

"Yes?" Blue asks, doing the best to hide his intimidated feeling on the back of his mind; the man before them next to the girl turns around in place, before walking back quite a distance; due to his height, only a few small steps are needed to walk several feet away from Red, Blue, and Green.

{Not you,} The small, pudgy woman in armor speaks, before moving to point her left hand towards Red, {him} the woman addresses Red, as Red looks over towards the tall, slouching man now several feet away.

{We'd like to borrow your companion's talents in a demonstration for our research} The woman explains, as Blue and Green look bemused as to how Red is getting a lot of attention today.

' _Since when did the universe suddenly decide to make Red the most important thing about today?'_ Blue thinks to himself, as the woman patiently waits for Red's answer, as the tall man stands in place; tapping his left foot against the ground, he seems to be eager to want to battle Red. Red doesn't take too long to determine the man's intentions, as he draws his Poké Ball and calls upon Charmander first.

Waving both of his hands forward in a slow gesture, only one finger on each hand is raised as the other are curled together; Red gets the implication of the man choosing the rules one on one, meaning Pidgey would take a sideline to this fight; not that Pidgey could currently fight in its condition anyways, considering the immense power of Charmander's attack that scored the catch.

Drawing a Poké Ball from the back behind his rear, it appears to be a Premier Ball in type as he lazily throws it forward, and out comes a tall, semi-bipedal Pokémon from which Red's eyes widen as Blue and Green gain a look of both surprise and confusion on their face.

The Pokémon in question resembles some kind of tailless, blue and yellow badger of sorts, with a vicious expression on its face, and fiery red spots on the back of its neck, as well as rather small limbs that indicate this Pokémon moves better on all fours than it does on two legs.

"What kind of weird Pokémon is that?" Blue asks to Green, quietly, as Red's Charmander looks unnerved by the ferocious Pokémon standing before it.

"I don't know, but Charmander doesn't look willing to fight against it…" Green says, as she looks at worry towards Charmander and notices its expression dampening the more it has to look at the probably fully evolved Pokémon before it.

"Charmander."

Red's voice is subdued, but sharp in addressing his Pokémon; Charmander looks at Red and notices Red looking down at Charmander with a serious gaze; Charmander looks back over towards the large, blue and yellow Pokémon with an intensified gaze.

Charmander huffs and gives a call towards the larger, mammalian Pokémon, but it is only greeted back by a savage roar from the opponent as behind its neck manifests a mane of flames. Blue is confused as to why the unidentified Pokémon isn't attacking yet, but then notices something; the intimidating, tall trainer it has hasn't budged in a few minutes now, so the Pokémon has no command to even execute at all.

"Red! Quit stalling! Order Charmander to attack!" Green yells to Red, as Red gestures his arm forward to point at the Pokémon opposing Charmander, as Charmander's tail begins to burn with a bright intensity. The mammalian Pokémon is about to attack, but the sudden hand gesture of its mysterious trainer wagging its finger "no" to it tells it to remain idle.

Charmander's tail intensifies in brightness, beginning to appear a bright blue in terms of coloration as the size of the flame increases. Charmander glares its eyes, glowing a fiery blue, towards the opponent, before exhaling a massive stream of blue flames towards the opponent as the Pokémon takes the hit without even moving at all; not even to block it, instead taking the attack directly.

"The heck? Can't even order your Pokémon to dodge?" Blue asks, as the tall man wags his finger to Blue in a motion that makes Blue look fuming in anger, as the tall man points to very, very faint fragments of powder on the ground from where Charmander's flame breath had touched the ground with.

{My apologies for Iaze's malfunction; he's incredibly dull minded at times; often childish at that} The mysterious woman says, as she gestures with both of her hands a cutting motion in a cross direction to the man, apparently named Iaze; he responds by snapping his fingers at his Pokémon to finally move, as the unidentified fire Pokémon's eyes suddenly go wide with feral slits for irises, as it lunges forward and grabs Charmander by the neck in its jaws.

With a strong enough of a bite to visibly draw blood.

Blue and Green's eyes suddenly go wide as to what they witness; Red's gaze remains relatively stoic, but at the same time, no less freaked out than Blue and Green in terms of visible expression.

"Charmander!" Red blurts out, as the larger mammalian Pokémon violently shakes Charmander around in its jaws like a ragdoll, before a snap of Iaze's fingers have the Pokémon drop Charmander into the ground by tossing it in a spike fashion to send Charmander plummeting into the solid ground and dirt, leaving a noticeable impact trail as a result.

{Strange; the specimen does not appear to exhibit its unusual quirks even at a time like this} Mupo speaks in a confused, but concerned tone towards Charmander's state in the battle, as Blue looks over at her and glares.

"Well excuse you, madam, but I think your pal over there is flat out trying to kill Red's Charmander!" Blue shouts angrily at Mupo, as Green nods as she equally glares at Mupo, then towards Iaze.

"I'm not having any of this! Bulbasaur, let's go!" Green calls as she tosses Bulbasaur's Poké Ball out into the field, as Bulbasaur emerges from within it. Bulbasaur lets out a low, rumbling sound, only to loudly let out a sharp, deep pitched call as it moves back a few steps in terror as it watches Charmander get thrashed by a much larger Fire Type Pokémon that it had no idea what it even is.

{Iaze, what's taking so long?! Turn up the heat!} Mupo criticizes her friend as the large blue and yellow Pokémon continues with thrashing about Charmander, with its sharp fangs and front claws; leaving bleeding scratches and puncture wounds all across Charmander's body, as Charmander is again tossed to the ground as Charmander trembles as he tries to stay standing.

Then Charmander had enough; Charmander's tail flame begins to burn with a larger flame, this time appearing blue in intensity, before quickly turning white. Blue and Green are shocked as the flames begin to coat Charmander and begin to partially heal the more grievous wounds just enough to keep them from being fatal, as Charmander looks upon the larger Pokémon with pupils turning into slits.

{Iaze! Burn Up!} Mupo commands her friend, as Iaze nods and snaps his fingers towards his Pokémon, as the Fire Type Pokémon engulfs itself in a massive flare of flames across its entire body, before pouring all of the fire into its open jaws and unleashing it in a giant, fiery sphere of energy. Charmander, whipping his tail outward to face the incoming flame, ends up absorbing the flame into its tail as now its tail flame glows violet in heat as Red, Blue and Green all begin sweating immensely as Green hastily calls back Bulbasaur to avoid it getting hurt.

"Blue! Call out Squirtle!" Green calls over the sounds of the searing hot flames crackling beside Red's Charmander, as Blue shakes his head.

"That won't work! Even if Squirtle is sent out, the air is becoming dehydrated from Charmander's flame! A Water Type Pokémon can't use Water Moves in a state like this!" Blue yells, as Green gasps.

"What do you mean?! Can't she use the water from the air?!"

"There is no water in the air! As I said, the place is dehydrated from Charmander and if this ke-" Blue notes, before noticing a motorcycle coming into view as a woman dressed in a police uniform of mostly dark blue and having turquoise hair tied up in a pigtail behind her head, and having maroon eyes shining at the sight of Charmander's flame as she gasps.

"Hey! If you guys aren't careful, you're going to ignite the plants in the area just with that flame being there!" The police woman yells harshly, as Mupo and Iaze quickly notice the woman and glance at each other. Iaze quickly calls back his Pokémon, as he and Mupo press a hidden button on the front of their suits, causing them both to vanish into thin air and leave the area. Blue and Green look at each other in confusion as to why Iaze and Mupo decided to ditch the scene so quickly, as they both look at Red in shock, as Red whistles for Charmander to cease with its charging flame.

Charmander does as it can barely hear from Red, but in doing so, the giant flame collapses into smaller, different flames that touch the ground; rather than burning the grass on impact, though, they instead harden into physical forms in the appearance of crystalline fragments of some kind, as Charmander rushes back over to Red and begins hissing a bit in an attempt to apologize, but Red simply returns him to his Poké Ball for the time being, as the police woman moves to sternly address Red, Blue, and Green.

"Now, I don't know what you three were doing, be it battling or trying to compare each other's Fire Types with each other, but this has to stop. I'm letting you three off with a warning, but with that said my sisters will be keeping an eye out for you elsewhere in Kanto if you so much as cause trouble again!" The police woman yells at the three teens, as Red moves forward first.

"With all due respect, ma'am, I think you missed two trainers whom we were battling a moment ago and-"

"Two trainers, huh? As in your two friends?" She inquires, as Blue and Green shake their heads in response, as Red clears his throat.

"Don't you have reports of people in purple and white uniforms to investigate? Those were the two people we had encountered here before you show up." Red tells her, as the police woman's scowl still holds up.

"Are you trying to excuse your actions earlier, mister?"

"No, ma'am."

"Then do us all a favor, clean up this mess and get back to behaving like normal trainers, or I'm going to revoke your trainer cards for a week if you keep trying to stall my time here!" The woman scolds Red, as she gets back onto her motorcycle and drives off in a heated fit. Blue looks at Red with a bit of an angry glare.

"Well she's in a snippy mood, she didn't even realize Green and I were spectators in your little spat with the big guy." Blue tells Red, before getting a glare from Green which leads him to adding in, "Well, er, at least Jenny could've been willing to listen to all three of us as to what had happened…" Blue says, as Green sighs, as she notices a sparkling in the grass burned up by Iaze's Pokémon and Red's Charmander, as she walks over to the burnt patches of grass and moves to pick up a very, very small crystal of some kind glowing in an intense, red colored energy from within.

"Guys… You might want to come over here and check this out…" Green tells Red and Blue, as the two boys walk over to Green and have a look at the crystal that Green has in her hands. Red's eyes briefly widen as he gazes upon it, as Blue's eyes narrow a bit.

"So this must've been what those two weirdos were after… I think?" Blue ponders about the crystal in Green's hand, as he looks over at Red who gives a quiet nod in agreement. Green looks at the crystal and moves to place it in her bag for now, as she looks towards the horizon towards the north, as well as glancing to the west as the sun is positioned towards just above the edge of the late noon.

"We don't have much daylight left, so let's get to training our Pokémon for future encounters with those two weirdos, alright?" Green tells the two boys beside her, as Blue nods; neither of the two are fast enough to hear the sound of a Poké Ball opening near Red.

"Alright, I can certainly try and train my Squirtle in the Pokémon League." Blue tells Green, only briefly noticing the sound of wing flapping, starting off strong, before becoming quieter not too long after.

"Yeah, Bulbasaur could also use some training as well; it's a tame Pokémon no matter how you raise it, but not many trainers are a fan of Bulbasaur as much as Squirtle or Char-"

Green shuts herself up as she notices Red is nowhere next to herself or Blue anymore, and looks around frantically to find where the boy must've ran off to, before looking into the air and seeing a very distinct 15 year old dressed in red.

Being held up in the air with Pidgey's talons and flying all the way north towards the next city. Blue simply stares as his eye twitches a little, all the while Green's expression at the moment could not be put into words no matter how hard one tried to.

"... How does that even work?" Green asks in complete bemusement as to how Red's Pidgey, which is just as small as Red's Charmander, is carrying Red all the way north into the distance without breaking a sweat.

"How much do you want to bet he's going to fall doing that?" Blue asks, as Green gives him a glare.

"Don't jinx it! Think of how hurt Red could get if Pidgey-" Green can't even finish her sentence, as she's gestured to look up into the sky by Blue; approximately where Red was in the sky, nothing can be seen there anymore, meaning either Red cleared the horizon altogether, or judging by the massive forest up ahead to the north, he could've dropped in altitude and entered the forest instead.

"We need to go check on him to make sure he's alright…" Green says, as she moves to run forward before being grabbed by the arm from Blue.

"Patience, Green! We don't have any kind of camping supplies and by the time we so much as reach Viridian Forest, night is going to fall and we'll be without any kind of shelter once we're in there looking for Red!" Blue warns Green, as Green looks at Blue and nods, before glancing over towards the Poké Mart up ahead towards the northeast.

Blue's expression dampens the moment the site of the Poké Mart reminds him of something.

"Greeeat… I still need to deliver that package to gramps." Blue tells Green, as Green looks at him with a nod.

"Then go deliver it; I'll go pick up camping supplies at the Poké Mart and I'll head into Viridian Forest to search for Red first." Green says to Blue, as Blue nods, as Blue moves to sprint towards the south back towards Palette Town, as Green moves to head into the Poké Mart to shop for camping supplies and food that they'll need for traveling all across Kanto.

Once Green is inside, and Blue is too far away to notice, Iaze and Mupo reappear from being hidden to have a glance towards the direction Red went off towards with his Pidgey.

{Quite a curious specimen, if I do say so myself} Mupo says to Iaze, as Iaze moves back towards the grass from which Green found the strange crystal, as Iaze moves to search the grass and finds a few crystalline shards in a rainbow color. Iaze examines the shards to see if they're worth his interest, as Mupo looks towards Iaze as she points towards the various crystalline powder littering some of the grass.

{Collect the residue from the fight proper; we have no use for an Awakening Emera in such a broken state} Mupo points out to Iaze, as Iaze moves to crush the crystals in his hand into additional powder, as he moves to collect the remaining powder in the area from the aftermath of his and Red's battle. Mupo, as she looks back towards the horizon up north, couldn't help but let out a high pitched chuckle at what she could determine Red, Blue, and Green were doing once they had "vanished".

{Still though, Iaze, do you think we might have some trouble with these two? Our grandmother would not exactly be thrilled to know we've allowed ourselves to have witnesses, let alone the fact we let them live to tell about it} Mupo begins to tell Iaze her thoughts on the situation, as Iaze continues collecting powder from the ground as much as he can see and grab, all the while Mupo gazes back on him.

{Iaze are you even listening to me at this moment in time? Or perhaps, maybe, your little fight with the boy struck a bit of a nerve}

The sound of Iaze's rustling in the grass for more powder ceases, as Iaze, very, very slowly, moves to stand and look Mupo in the eye, having to slouch a lot just to look her straight in the eye.

{Count on it}

* * *

 **AN: Yes, I actually went there with the infamous Pidgey meme. Admittedly I kind of wanted to justify Red even having a Pidgey to begin with considering Charizard pretty much outclasses Pidgeot any day, just up until final form Charizard isn't party Flying type but Pidgey is part Flying from the very beginning, so ultimately referencing that little meme there was the only logical way I could come up with a usage for Red's Pidgey here. Shame it will be impossible in _Pokémon Let's Go!_ for that matter...**


	5. Chapter 4: Abyss

**In memoriam, John W. Williams, Jr., 1940-2018. May you rest in peace, my loving grandfather.**

 **Starlight Ablaze Chapter 4:**

* * *

Blue's trip to Palette Town should've been simpler than he had realized it would be. What with the ominous noises of some kind of who knows what kind of entity causing it. Even he admits, mentally that is, that this is very much 90% possibly the Mythical Dragons of Sinnoh clashing in a parallel world with their aftershocks being felt in nearby dimensions.

Oh how he hoped that's all it was and literally nothing else out of the ordinary, as could honestly do without having to see Red's father back in Palette Town by the time he arrives with the parcel for his grandfather.

Unfortunately, as he rambles in his mind about the weird things going on, he doesn't seem to pay attention to who or what is in front of him, and ends up crashing head first into another person on Route 1.

"Ack! S-Sorry about that, I'm kind of-" Blue tries to hastily apologize, as he grabs the parcel to make sure it isn't damaged, but once he catches sight of the person he crashed into, he can't take his eyes away from the trainer before him.

Having dark skin, and violet hair, two traits of which are uncommon in Kanto, Blue muses to himself that he must've bumped into a trainer from a completely different region; no natives to the landmass of Kanto and Johto are noted for having such a dark skin tone as this girl before him, and very few immigrants from other regions exist to the point it's practically a 1 out of 8192 chance of encountering someone from such a region here in Kanto.

"Um… Hello? Are you dead to reality, or…?" The girl speaks to Blue, as Blue snaps out of his rambling thoughts to focus his attention on the girl; her striking crystal blue eyes piercing Blue's own eyes with curiosity and intrigue; Blue smirks mentally, since he sees an opportunity now that Red and Green are nowhere to bother him with it.

"Why hello, madam. Any reason a beauty like you passes through on Route 1?" Blue asks, all smug about his confidence in flirting with this dark skinned girl. The girl, whom Blue didn't even ask for her name yet, simply smiles a bit as she gazes at Blue.

"I'm researching Pokémon native to Kanto on my mother's behalf; she and my brother Dexio have recently moved with me to Kanto from Kalos to continue our studies abroad." The girl responds to Blue, as Blue maintains his expression with thinning confidence, since he realizes the girl didn't even so much as react to his obvious attempt to flirt.

"What is your name if I may ask?" She asks, as Blue smirks a bit.

"I was about to ask you the same question, madam." Blue states, as now he suddenly gets a bit of a glare from the girl.

"It's rude to ask for a girl's name before giving your own first, dick." The girl says with the upmost honesty and sincerity, her calm demeanor not budging an inch despite how hostile her choice of wording became so quickly.

"Um… er… How about I rephrase that; my name is Blue, what's yours?" Blue asks, his confidence in ruins as the smug smirk on his face had effectively been blast completely off, all the while the girl slyly giggles a bit.

"Call me Sina; as I've mentioned I'm a transfer student from Kalos, coming to study here in Kanto for the time being. Tell me, are you familiar with Mega Evolution?" Sina introduces herself, then asks a question of Blue right away; Blue raises an eye as to what exactly she just asked him.

' _What the heck is Mega Evolution? Gramps never told me about anything like that before… did he?'_ Blue thought, as he looks at Sina clear in the eyes and nods.

"Yes, I am aware of what Mega Evolution is!" Blue lies, to attempt to boast to impress Sina in an attempt to flirt yet again. "Mega Evolution, ah, yes, I recall when my Squirtle would immediately evolve into Blastoise so suddenly that it could only maintain the form briefly and-"

"Oh you little prick~, that's not how Mega Evolution works! No Pokémon that has further natural evolutions can achieve what I'm referring to." Sina boasts to Blue while bowing a bit in her posture with her hands behind her back, tucked behind her waist; Blue blushes as he immediately catches Sina's own attempt to flirt with him.

"I'm 16 by the way, I take it you're the same?" Sina asks of Blue, as Blue nods; grabbing his Trainer Card and holding it out to here, he shows her his verified age of 16 years, as Sina brings out her Trainer Card and shows her own verified age of 16 years.

"Sorry about that, Blue; I wasn't sure if you were my own age or not; you honestly look a tad older than you are, and I find that kind of appealing~!" Sina reassures Blue, all the while Blue's face turns red at the remark.

' _Clearly this girl lacks in subtlety… then again, who am I to really judge?'_ Blue mentally notes, as he realizes something; that gigantic rodent of a Fire Type that Iaze used against Red, maybe Sina knows what it is?

"Say, Sina, I have to ask, you wouldn't happen to know about a Pokémon with a yellow and dark blue coloration, walks on either its hind legs or all fours, and has spots around the back of its neck that can spout fire in an enraged mood, yes?" Blue asks Sina, as Sina's taken aback by how innocent of a question Blue decides to ask her, as she pulls out her own Pokédex to check for herself on such a Pokémon that matches Blue's description.

' _Her Pokédex model seems different from the one gramps uses it, not that I'm surprised.'_ Blue remarks to himself in his head, lying about not being surprised since he's about as naïve to know what kind of Pokémon exist outside of Kanto, much like how his grandpa is.

"Typhlosion, the Pokémon you described is Typhlosion. Pure Fire Type, a hair trigger temper like nobody could believe, and honestly makes Charizard look tame in terms of violent behavior, at least, that is, so long as you're not using Mega Charizard to compare it to that is." Sina explains, as Blue gives Sina a weird look, all the while Sina sighs a bit.

"… You _really_ don't know what Mega Evolution is, don't you?" Sina asks Blue, giving him a partial glare to try and force him to be honest; Blue shakes his head no, as Sina's expression lightens up and her lips form a very soft smile.

"Tell you what Casanova; I'll give you a little gift for our first meeting to see how you make the best of it, and within a week's time, if you can meet me at Celadon City and beat me in a Pokémon battle using these items…" Sina details to Blue about her little plan, as Blue listens carefully as Sina walks closer to him and hands him two circular stones; one smaller one which has a rainbow colored DNA helix in the center, and one that's predominantly blue and has a near identical DNA helix inside of it.

"And what happens if I win? Will you go on a date with me?" Blue asks; he should've slapped himself for having the audacity to ask something with such a sarcastic tone, immaturity and-

"Why, yes, actually~… hehe…" Sina tells Blue, as Blue's eyes widen in shock, "And if I win, you'll take me on a date and pay for the meal instead. Sound fair?"

Blue's too busy trying to process this information in his head that he only just now realizes he still has the parcel to deliver to Oak, but considering what he's being challenged to right now, he figures the parcel can wait as long as it needs until the conversation is over.

"Sure; I'll see you within a week at Celadon, cutie~!" Blue tells her, as Sina giggles a bit, as Sina moves in unusually close to Blue to whisper something in his ear, her hand vaguely moving around to Blue's side.

"I'll be sure to smell you later then, Blue; don't leave a girl like me waiting for her date when the time arrives~." Sina tells him, as Sina moves to walk off while humming a blissful tune of sorts, as Blue just looks back towards her and gawks at her in shock; she's a girl of many surprises, as far as he can tell, and quite a beautiful one at that.

' _Oh yeah, Blue 1, Red 0. Heh, can't wait til he and Green hear how my luck has changed thus far.'_

* * *

Upon arriving at his grandfather's laboratory, Blue takes the time to recompose himself after what he experienced back at Route 1 with Sina; admittedly, she's a weird one since she's asking to date Blue so quickly, but considering how Blue himself started the whole ordeal by flirting with her first, was she just toying with his mind? Or was she being sincere and honest to him about their potential date at Celadon?

Either way, Blue takes out the odd gemstones from his pocket, as his eyes slightly widen upon feeling something else in his pocket. Pulling the item out, and Blue sees he has a voucher for a shop of sorts; the label showcases a dark blue color to it, and the ocean waves and clear sky is visible on the card; it kind of resembles a postcard to anyone not keen enough to notice the label saying "Cerulean City Bike Shop" on it.

Blue simply tucks the voucher back into his pocket for now; right now he has to deal with giving his grandpa a parcel from the Poké Mart before he realizes it's late by now.

Opening the door to the laboratory, Blue walks inside and finds all of the lights shut off, and he looks around with a keen eye towards every possible spot he can see within the laboratory.

Not a soul in sight for the entire laboratory; only a single computer is turned on in an otherwise powered down laboratory, and it has a sticky note on it meant to get Blue's attention due to how it sticks out compared to the dark room and lit up, singular monitor screen.

Blue, walking over to the computer, checks the sticky note and sees what exactly it reads:

" _Attending funeral at Fuchsia City, place any deliveries on the counter next to this PC. –Professor Samuel Oak."_

"… Nice of him to leave a note…" Blue states to himself aloud; sounding somewhat distraught as he says that, but quickly moved to have his left arm dry off his face from slowly forming tears, which ceased upon Blue attempting to recompose his state of mind.

As he looks around in the laboratory, he takes notice of some of the machinery towards the left side view from where he was facing the monitor of the computer, as he moves to walk over towards them and check one of the devices out. A large machine containing six, empty Poké Ball containers is seen, as Blue identifies it in his mind as, possibly, being a rundown Pokémon Center healing machine.

Blue recalls some memories of Oak and himself when he was younger; he recalls the day that he first seen his grandfather acquire this machine, from a rather elderly woman near equal to Oak in age; at least, in terms of Oak's age in the present day. Back then, Blue himself was only 6 years old, and while many things from 10 years ago stayed unchanged to this day, he recalls how several things were different.

Green did not live in Palette Town originally like how Blue and Red both did, and Blue and Red have always been somewhat close as friends despite Blue's increasingly bitter nature developing as he grew older and developed an insufferable ego; a fact that Blue himself would never admit, and mentally he refuses to refer to it as such, instead recalling it as "becoming closer to a teen".

Mentally, when it came to being confronted by Red or any other "lower class" kid growing up, Blue would always change the answer, but if confronted by Oak himself, he would always be a lot more honest and actually tell him the real answer.

"I'm just tired of living in your shadow so much." Blue speaks to himself, very quietly, as he can't really seem to grasp how harsh of a response to Oak that always had been, as Blue's senses snap back to reality when he hears a rush of wind graze the back of his neck as Blue's eyes widen and he turns 180 degrees to look around behind himself.

Nothing shows itself, and Blue can practically taste the emptiness of the laboratory every time he takes a breath, and it's slowly becoming more and more unwelcoming of a presence as Blue doesn't even realize he's slowly going from just a delivery boy for his grandfather, to suddenly trespassing by overstaying his welcome in an empty laboratory with very expensive items and machinery in it, as if any moment something would click in his head and yell at him to take something.

Blue could feel his hair shivering with a tingling sensation; something is here in the lab with him, watching his every move possible; Blue only realizes after having zoned out for so long that he still has the box with the parcel inside to deliver and leave here. As Blue snaps back to reality, he moves to place the box on the counter next to the PC, as Blue slowly begins to have his sweating hands finally let go of the box, his fingers slowly releasing themselves from holding it and-

"Well? Aren't you curious as to what's inside?"

Blue nearly jumps as he could practically hear someone whisper that in his ear at a dangerous invasion of his personal space; he looks around, seeing nobody, as he could've sworn he had felt someone grasping him from behind and saying something to him quietly.

"Who's there?! Show yourself before I'm forced to kick you out!" Blue yells into the emptiness of the laboratory; his voice echoes across the expanse of the interior of the lab, which only further unnerves Blue, even more so when nobody responds to his question.

Only the emptiness of the lab and he himself were in any presence of each other; Squirtle still rests inside of Blue's Poké Ball containing her, and there are no Poké Balls left behind in Oak's laboratory containing any Pokémon within them; at least, that's what Blue thought anyways.

Upon clearing his thoughts, Blue notices that there are no lights shining into the building; a loud crackle of thunder brightens the dark room; Blue, directly in front of himself, could briefly see a blank figure with a Cheshire grin of sorts all across its face and no other features present, and the sight of piercing, reptilian eyes are ingrained into Blue's mind, as Blue struggles and lets out a few gasps of shock as he looks around, and can't stop seeing piercing eyes akin to what Iaze and Mupo had shown for themselves, as the room is once again dark after the call of thunder ceased.

Rain soon begins to downpour outside of the laboratory, as Blue realizes he needs to get going and meet Green back in Palette Town, but right now, he can't help but sit down, and have his hands grasp his head to try and get himself to calm down; the emptiness of the lab is only making things worse, and Blue had never been left alone like this before to such a degree and-

'Actually, now that I think of it; alone in gramps' lab, with none of the staff present, and I myself being the sole person here… it all seems vaguely familiar… As if this has happened before, but I cannot recall why?'

Blue's thoughts could only wish he knew the answer to that; Blue moves to finally stand, taking deep breaths as he does so, and moves to walk towards the door in the laboratory from which he could see in range.

Blue wakes up to reality to find its storming outside of the laboratory and all across this portion of Kanto, as he sticks close to the laboratory building and keeps himself out from the rain so he can grab his Pokégear and try and call either Red or Green; thinking Red is not going to answer, Blue dials Green to hope she'll answer.

"Hello? Blue? Where have you been for the past two hours?" Green's worried voice graces Blue's hearing as he answers her.

"I got sidetracked at gramps' lab, I just got done delivering the parcel," he lies about how smooth things went when in reality it was anything but, "I should be able to get back to Viridian City all on my own and-"

"Blue, _**DON'T!**_ It's not safe; take shelter in whichever building you're closest to and _stay there_ , I repeat, _**stay there**_ and do _**not**_ go anywhere else until _this weather clears!_ Do you understand me? This is _**a life or death**_ situation and I don't want you to risk losing your life over what's happening in the bay to the east!" Green yells over the Pokégear, as the call's connection is quickly being reduced to static, as Blue horrifyingly gazes at the skyline to see powerful bolts of thunder strike the ocean towards the south, as something glowing an immense, yellow spark of light could be seen floating in the air, directly in Blue's view of the horizon.

Blue rushes inside and shuts and locks the door to the lab, knowing anybody who would need to get in would already have the key or would be already safe from the storm; Blue heads towards the computer, knowing that it's still on, and goes to quickly try and search up what exactly is appearing which is causing this severe storm.

As Blue moved to try and sit down in front of the computer, he couldn't even see when something knocked the chair out from under him, and something blunt and powerful struck his head, as his body hits the floor and the feeling of immense shaking and trembling forces stirring, the sound of glass shattering, books falling across the laboratory interior, and machines rapidly powering on and off before power ceased altogether, all the while the computer Blue was attempting to get an answer from responds just as the blunt trauma to his head takes hold and knocks him unconscious.

 _ **"͉̥̪̞͚͢͜Z̶̩͖̟̼͡͡a̯̕͠͠p̸̻̲̱̥̱̼̱͘d͇̀͢ͅo̡̫̟̖s͏͖̺̖̺ ͈͚͞a̛̼̮͙p̲͈̬̯͜p̢̪͉̺̤̘̜̗̲̟͠e̛̠͇̩͢a̡͕͎̙̰͔͙͟r̶̰͎̹̞͚̲̫e̵̝͖̱̲̹͍̪d̞̜̳̜̦̳̳͡ͅ.͏͙"̠̟͕͘͢**_


	6. Chapter 5: Pretty in Green

**Starlight Ablaze Chapter 5:**

* * *

Fuchsia City; a solemn mood for a time like this, especially with the downpour of the storm in the Kantonian bay hitting this city hard, although not as hard as it is Palette Town. A coastal city like this has this sort of weather as very commonplace, as everyone still out on the streets are wearing rain coats to shield themselves from the weather.

Professor Oak is among many wearing a rain coat, in the form of a trench coat with a fedora-esque hat he's wearing as well to shield his head from the rain. Regardless of whether or not he intends to hide himself from the public, every now and then a passerby will stop and look at him, usually mumbling something such as…

"Look, it's Oak!"

"What's Oak doing here at a time like this?"

"I can't believe Oak's actually here in person."

"Oak is here, but why? What's so important that is going on that Oak decides to show up?"

"I don't know; he's a man of such high regard, that's for sure; good ole' fashioned Professor Oak is who he is."

Everyone he passes by knows who he is, and appears to hold him in high regard. As it should be known; as the Pokémon Professor of Kanto, Oak's near 60 years of life has led to him developing a significant amount of fame and notoriety across all of Kanto. As time had progressed, he started off as an unknown; an ordinary Pokémon Trainer in Kanto with no experience aside from him and his starting Pokémon. He was just a child back then, and not very well respected; now he's a senior, and nearly everyone knows who he is from his scientific accomplishments on the research of Pokémon as a whole.

Professor Oak, giving a passing wave and smile to each person who addresses him or notices him along the street, as Oak continues to walk towards a building up towards the northern part of the city. A building that blocks the city from a miniature wilderness just to the north, a wilderness which is where a man wearing a red shirt, a black coat, and having an officer's badge on his shoulder, as well as a skull-like set of facial features, and piercing red eyes.

"You're late, Samuel." The man addresses Oak as he approaches the building, as Oak stops in front of him once he approaches him, stopping by the door.

"Well it's better late than never, Nanu; you know how I am whenever it comes to this sort of situation." Oak tells the man, named Nanu, as Nanu raises an eye.

"I'm just doing my job and keeping a lookout for anyone suspicious; just go on into the wild area, the staff will escort you to where the burial is taking place." Nanu says, as he turns his gaze away from Oak to glance around everything else in the city, as Oak simply nods to him and walks inside the building, after the door opens upon his approach. Nanu, meanwhile, simply glares towards the skies, where Zapdos is visible in the air, causing a ruckus in the weather with its generation of electricity.

"Rainy days like these, made only worse by any Electric Type such as you. Do you often wonder, Legendary Bird of Thunder, as to what exactly makes this kind of weather welcoming for folks like me?"

* * *

Green is at the Viridian City Pokémon Center, on the second floor in front of an elevator, with a tall, rather pale looking, blond teen blocking her from entering.

"For the last time, lady; this floor is exclusive to trainers who have all 8 of this region's badges, and you're not on the list!" The man harshly shouts at Green, as Green mopes a bit in expression, closing her eyes, as she slowly opens them with quite a gleam in her eyes. Her expression becomes rather coy and sickeningly sweet as she steps closer to the man.

"Won't you please let me in?" Green asks with a rather sultry tone in her voice, as she fakes a giggle a bit, but the man simply is beyond baffled with Green's choice of bribe to try and get upstairs. "I'm single, and I can tell that so are you, so what do ya say, blondie? Wanna share a room together~?" Green approaches the man, as she moves to brush her thigh against his-

"Oh what the hell's going on in that sick little mind of yours, lady?!" The man suddenly snaps, as Green's flirtatious expression completely disappears, as she fights the urge to kick the man in a certain area as the man quickly shoves her away from himself.

"First of all, I'm single, you're correct. Two, you're no older than 16, right? For the record, I'm 18, and unless your offer is still valid when I return to Kanto once I turn 21, I'm just going to have to refuse you right now regardless. Third, even if you were 18 right now, we'd both get kicked out of the Pokémon Center because neither of us can enter the third floor rooms without all 8 Kantonian gym badges!" The man goes on an entire tangent towards Green; for some reason, Green feels as though she can continue to hear the man gripe and complain towards her in a very passive-aggressive sense, but Green's own thoughts is drowning it out right now if he somehow is still speaking.

' _Jeeze, I wasn't even being serious about the perverted flirting and he's just going all wacko with this rant against me. Talk about being super thin skinned.'_ Green thinks to herself, as her hips can feel something rub against her, as she looks to her side and sees Bulbasaur's Poké Ball shaking a little bit all by itself, as she looks towards the older teen before her with an idea.

"Alright then, blondie, you clearly want to vent some steam, so if it's illegal for us to do it sexually, can we at least do it brutally? I'll meet you in the training rooms on the first floor if you so wish~." Green simply states to the man, as the man simply gawks at her slowly walk off, with his eyes focusing on her.

'… _The heck? She wants to battle me this quickly? I could've sworn she wasn't- Oh no, I got to check this out before I lose my chance to see her battle if she happens to be who I'm supposed to have been looking for…'_ The teen thinks to himself, as he moves to follow Green and move to stand beside her as they both walk to the training rooms.

Every Pokémon Center has what is referring to as a training room; a room that is said to exist beyond the realm of space and time, according to urban legend anyways. A room that allows for up to two individuals to meet up and have a personalized, miniature colosseum and or trading center dedicated to the two of them and them alone, meaning nobody could interfere with any duo battling or trading Pokémon.

Even so, many regions had completely different takes on the concept, but Kanto was the first region where these specialized rooms first existed at any point across the entire globe. Nobody quite understands where exactly the "beyond space and time" urban legend originated from, but most trainers regardless of region tend not to question it. After all, how can various studies such as scientific explanations on the origin of the universe still exist even with it being a good 30 years after Arceus was first discovered in deep space by modern humans?

Who knows, food for thought, I suppose.

Once Green and the older teen are right at the door to the training room, Green comes to an awkward conclusion once she sees the door open, as the older male's eyes bug out a bit.

"Only this much room? I mean I know the room on the inside is bigger once we're actually in, but…" Green mumbled to herself, as the man looks at Green with a glare.

"Oh I'm sorry weren't you the one trying to brush your thigh against my groin earlier despite my own age?" The man asks, as Green recoils back a bit in disgust.

"Look, had I known you were 18 I wouldn't have even bothered flirting in that way." Green has no idea to the fact both she and the older teen had been snuck up upon from behind.

"Implying you would've in some way flirted regardless?"

"What can I say? I'm already looking to lose my virginity on my 18th birthday anyways."

"With a boyfriend on an anniversary or just a random stranger in a one night stand?"

"Well honestly if you really want me to be serious about it I'll take your number prior to you leaving Kanto so that way when we see each other again when you turn 21, we can then-"

"Oh for _goodness_ sakes, _**get a room already you two!**_ " The angry, flustered, and embarrassed shouting of Nurse Joy yells at the two of them before she forcefully shoves both Green and the blond teen into the entrance to the training rooms at the same time, as the door closes behind them and a flicker of light can be seen from behind the glass as the two disappear into light.

* * *

Inside the training room, it actually turns out to be more spacious as Green had implied, as there wasn't an awful lot of room aside from the standard battle arena, with a layout not uncommon from what is to be expected in similar types of battle rooms in all of Kanto. Given an ample amount of room, Green and the stranger have more than enough room to battle with.

"So, what's the wager with this?" Green asks, as the blond raises an eye from behind his eye covering, blue shades.

"Nothing too outrageous, please; already paying for a larger room than necessary for my stay here anyways." The blond states, as Green raises an eye in return.

"But Pokémon Center hotel rooms are free provided you're following the first come, first serve basis." Green brings up.

"Not on the second floor they're not; they're literally just a downgraded version of the VIP rooms on the third floor, so those rooms actually cost actual money."

"How much we talking here?" Green inquires, earning a glare from the man.

"Too valuable to wager for, I'm afraid." The man states, as Green rolls her eyes.

"Riiight… So lemme guess, is your name also too valuable to deserve at least telling me?" Green asks, as the man sighs.

"You didn't exactly tell me yours before you tried to feel me up earlier; you didn't even know anything about me before trying to flaunt yourself like that for that matter!" The blond points out. He doesn't even sound like he's even all that freaked out by the advance despite how mad it made him regardless, which Green is quick to notice.

"So might I ask why you're not sounding more concerned about it?"

"Depends, have you been to Kalos?"

"No."

"Good; because if you did, you'd find creeps like my dad. My mom hails from Kanto, hence why I came all this way to visit her, and despite that, she's literally only 12 years older than me. Try and do the math there if you will." The blond states, as a long, awkward silence fills the room as Green visibly cringes from the mental image with whatever the implications for the context must've been.

"… Let's… Uh… Just ignore that and get on with our introductions, shall we?" Green asks, as the man sighs of relief.

"Oh thank goodness something saner for once, but either way. Right, so the name's Dexio. I'm here visiting my mother and sister here in Kanto, after I had jailed my old man the moment I had turned 18." Dexio introduces, as he removes his shades, revealing silver colored eyes behind them.

"My name is Green; don't ask for how I was given such a name, even my parents don't even know. Still, though, not as screwed up as your dad's 'logic' regarding knocking up an 11 year old." Green introduces, as Dexio groans.

"You don't know the half of it, but let's just pretend we never brought that up shall we?" Dexio asks, as Green nods.

"Agreed, so now what about the wager?"

"Would ₱20,000 suffice?"

' _Oh hell yes~'_ Green thought to herself, as she gives Dexio a nod in confirmation.

"Alright, I'll go easy on ya in this case." Dexio says, as he grabs a Poké Ball by his belt and tosses it onto the field; appearing out of it is a spherical mouse of sorts with a zigzagging tail with a smaller sphere attached to it, colored primarily blue and white with bits of red inside its round ears.

Green blinks in a bit of shock; she hasn't seen a Pokémon like this before, so she reaches for her Pokédex to try and identify it. [Data Not Found.] The Pokédex informs her, as Green groans in irritation.

"Okay, so first two idiots in spacesuits show up with an unidentifiable Pokémon, and now you're here with a Pokémon that is literally unidentifiable since my Pokédex won't even register it properly." Green mumbles a bit, her eyes briefly closed as she says that, before she opens them again as she grabs for her Poké Ball on her belt.

"Bulbasaur, I choose you!" Green calls, as she calls out Bulbasaur onto the battlefield, as Bulbasaur lets out a calm growling of sorts, almost kind of a purring type of sound. Dexio, meanwhile, raises an eye, as he notices that Green doesn't have any other Poké Balls on her belt.

"No other Pokémon with you it seems?" Dexio asks, before gesturing to his side at his belt, indicating he has two other Pokémon with him based off of the two other Poké Balls on his belt. Green nods, as she briefly tosses Bulbasaur's Poké Ball in her own hand as she focuses on Bulbasaur and the identified blue Pokémon.

Bulbasaur smells the air around them, noticing how sterile the training room appeared to be due to its otherworldly nature, and then focusing on the Pokémon before him. Bulbasaur gives off a purring noise towards the blue Pokémon before him, as he winds up getting an affectionate, squeaking sound from the blue Pokémon. A definite far cry from the general, outright hostility Iaze's own blue Pokémon had when it was confronting Red's Charmander.

Green and Dexio both notice the behavior of their Pokémon, and notice something quickly. Dexio's Pokémon doesn't seem all that interested in a battle, whereas Bulbasaur seems more interested in making a friend. Bulbasaur, sniffing the ground, moves to approach the blue, spherical Pokémon with intrigue.

Without either Green nor Dexio even saying anything, the blue Pokémon proceeds to punch Bulbasaur across the room; a harsh chill fills the air, as Dexo's Pokémon appears to have manifested ice around its small arms to attack Bulbasaur with. Bulbasaur, looking back at Green in a baffled state, speaks up with a more growl-like vocalization towards her, as Green looks back at the blue Pokémon before pointing towards it as to give Bulbasaur a command.

"Alright, Bulbasaur! Use Leafage on Dexio's Pokémon!" Green commands, as Bulbasaur's eyes widen, before shaking its head no to Green in rapid succession. Green tilts her head with a baffled expression; for some reason she's able to quickly realize that Bulbasaur's refusal or her command has nothing to do with general obedience, as virtually any other trainer might quickly deduce in this situation.

Instead, it appears to be the fact Bulbasaur simply either doesn't know the move "Leafage", or cannot even learn it to begin with. Dexio raises an eye behind his blue shades, as he raises his hand and performs a clicking gesture with his hand, as to get his blue Pokémon's attention towards him and him alone.

"Uh… Bulbasaur use Leaf Blade?" Green asks, as Bulbasaur once again rapidly shakes his head no in response. "Absorb?" Green asks, to which Bulbasaur again shakes his head.

"Needle Arm? Seed Flare? Solar Blade?" Green tries asking regarding different Grass Type moves; each time, Bulbasaur shakes his head no in response to each of the moves Green lists off, as Dexio places a palm on his forehead as he witnesses Green trying and failing to give a proper order to her Bulbasaur.

"Look, Green, I get what you're trying to ask of Bulbasaur here, I truly do. Just because Bulbasaur is a Grass Type, doesn't mean it can learn every Grass Type move known to exist." Dexio explains, as his blue Pokémon is still looking at Dexio with glee.

"Perhaps, or maybe you should consider my other reason for causing some confusion here. Bulbasaur! Mega Drain!" Green calls all of a sudden, as Bulbasaur's bulb on his backside glows a bright greenish hue, before several circles manifest around Dexio's Pokémon as they soon are quickly absorbed into Bulbasaur via the circles generating spores that return to Bulbasaur and feed the bulb on its back.

Dexio can't even react fast enough to command his Pokémon to move, as his spherical Pokémon soon collapses to the ground with a lack of energy to keep on going, as Dexio sighs and moves to approach his Pokémon, moving to gently pet it behind its ears, before calling it back to its Poké Ball.

"Well, cheap tactic aside, I'm actually glad you're more informed on battle techniques than you had me led to believe at first." Dexio notes, as he reaches into his pocket, grabbing two small orbs of sorts as he moves to approach Green and hand them to her; as Bulbasaur is moving to fall asleep lazily beside Green's feet, Green's eyes widen a little bit as to what exactly Dexio is handing her.

"Are these…?!"

"A Key Stone and Venusaurite, yes. I've deemed you worthy of having these for showcasing a hidden potential in your capabilities as a trainer. However-" Dexio notes, as he watches as both Green, himself, and Green's Bulbasaur appear outside of the training room.

"If you keep trying to use underhanded tactics to make up for a lack of overall power and skill, you're not going to get very far and you'll actually get kicked out a lot before the battle will even finish. Just do me a favor and try and keep that in mind, alright?" Dexio adds, as Green looks at him and nods. Dexio, meanwhile, moves to grab his Pokégear, as does Green, and the both of them exchange their numbers with each other, all the while Green gives Dexio a playful wink.

"See you in three years I take it?" Green says, as Dexio nods to her.

"Count on it." Dexio says, as he moves to leave for his room on the second floor, as Green looks out of the window of the first floor of the Pokémon Center, noticing it still storming like no tomorrow.

"Oh, crap… After all of that, I forgot that I still have a friend who's stuck in Viridian Forest I need to worry about, especially considering this dangerous weather..." Green notes, as Dexio looks over towards the front doors of the Pokémon Center as he can vaguely see someone approaching from outside.

"Might want to hold your breath, Green; is that them out there heading on in here?" Dexio asks, as the front doors barge open with a great force with the intense winds from outside briefly managing to get inside, as Green's Bulbasaur wakes up to quickly grab onto Green with vines emerging from its back to avoid getting blown across the room.

As the front doors shut, standing at the front desk of the Pokémon Center interior is none other than Red, as he's panting heavily from having seemingly ran a good distance towards the Pokémon Center. Nurse Joy approaches him, as Red quickly takes three Poké Balls and a Premier Ball by his belt and sets them on the counter for her to get to work on healing the Pokémon inside.

Green is shocked to see Red seemingly has four Pokémon now, but that'll have to wait as Green walks up to Red to check on him. "Red, are you alright? You look scared half to death." Green asks, as Red looks at Green with a nod.

"Something got him." Red pointed out, as Green's eyes widen, as Red places his hands on Green's shoulders to force her to look at him in the eyes.

"Something got Blue! We need to go find him, now!"


	7. Chapter 6: Thunderous Replies

**AN: Honestly sometimes the weirdest stuff pops into my mind when I write for Pokémon. Whereas with Digimon I also tend to be rather self-aware at times, with Pokémon I typically tend to be even more self-aware due to my much greater understanding of the latter's source material. It's just something I notice with my writing and whenever I ask my friends about my writing, that's all.**

 **Starlight Ablaze Chapter 6:**

* * *

"Okay, could you care to explain to me what's going on?" Nurse Joy asks Red, who is still heavily panting from fatigue, soaking wet from the stormy weather outside, and overall uncharacteristically panicked about what had happened to Blue. Green, also realizing Red's noticeably chattier than he's ever been period, decides to try and place her hands on Red's shoulders, would moving him to the nearest chair to have him forcefully sit down.

"Okay, Red, it's not going to make anything better with you in such a panic. Can you do me a favor and take a few deep breaths and try and calm down, before explaining what had happened?" Green asks of Red, as Dexio observes the situation from afar; his presence unknown to Red, but Green can practically feel his gaze on both of them.

"Blue wound up in Viridian Forest through means from which I don't understand; I figured if he were to have come back, he would've already been here long before I showed up myself." Red says, as he pauses, as Green watches Red a bit intensely, as Red tries to avert eye contact, as Green's eyes keep moving to try and maintain it.

"Green, if you want to keep me calm, you're constant eye contact isn't helping…" Red says, as Green stiffens a bit, wanting to urge Red to know what happened to Blue, but she doesn't feel it wise to press Red's buttons any further, intentional or not. Green already barely understands, yet alone knows, much of Red's background and personal history. Blue knows Red more than anyone else, but she isn't Blue, so she doesn't have his knowledge on Red to help her figure out how to communicate with Red.

"Allow me to give it a shot." Dexio speaks up, making his presence better known, as he walks up towards Red, with Green moving out of the way to allow Dexio room; the normality of Dexio's tone and his seriousness is enough to convince Green to allow him to do whatever he needs to do.

"…" Red is silent regarding Dexio's present, not that anyone can blame him. Throughout everything Green has learned about Red over the past day, Red is very much a shut in, so it's obvious that Red wouldn't react very much to Dexio trying to make eye contact, as Dexio removes his shades and kneels down to be on equal height as Red.

"Red, is it?" Dexio asks, as Red looks at him and silently nods. Dexio closes his eyes, as he takes in a deep breath, and then lets out a slow exhale.

 **((Look at me.))** Dexio's eyes snap wide open; a very bright, very unusual silver glow manifests from his eyes. Green backs away a bit in surprise, as Red doesn't even flinch at the sight. Nurse Joy also looks a bit startled by Dexio's eyes shining in such a way, and is moving to grab a Poké Ball hidden in her attire just in case everything goes downhill from here.

 **((I said, look at me, please.))** Dexio states again to Red through a mental link he's trying to establish; Red, realizing this, looks at Dexio directly in the eyes. From what Red can see, Dexio has had this ability of sorts for a very long time. Dexio could likewise see just how apathetic Red had become over the years through his uninterested gaze alone, although from what Dexio can tell, Red's lack of social understanding could also be playing a part here.

 **((Now then, keep focus on my eyes, as I try and reach and grasp the details on what happened to your friend. Just breathe in, and breathe out, and everything will be fine.))** Dexio instructs Red, as Red maintains his gaze with Dexio for the time being. Green, and the Nurse Joy, witness what is going on, but have no idea what to make of it. Nurse Joy already had the hindsight of knowing Dexio is not from Kanto, but she was never given any foresight of something like this.

 **((Blue appears before you in Viridian Forest, you ask why he didn't go to the Pokémon Center. He responds that something is chasing him, and that if he had gone to the Pokémon Center, the danger would've barged into here as well.))** Dexio translates what he can see within Red's mind, as he physically speaks those words at the same time as he analyzes it telepathically.

' _Glad to hear Blue actually has standards… But what exactly could be chasing him?'_ Green thinks to herself, as she continues to carefully observe Dexio's mind read of Red. Dexio nods as he continues his search through Red's mind, as he continues to speak more information on what had happened.

 **((A gigantic humanoid appears before you and Red, moving at an astonishing speed while at the same time skipping like a little girl. Despite how that sounds, the entity has gigantic proportions that make her look more like a Pokémon than a human, and as various Pokémon within Viridian Forest approach her, she outright uses lethal force on them with her own brutish strength, giggling like a child all the while…))** Dexio reads and speaks aloud, as he doesn't like the sound of what he's describing at all, but continues to search Red's mind for any clues as to what happened to Blue.

 **((Another entity enters the scene, apparently having been following Blue the entire time against everyone else's notice except Red's. It reveals itself to be a Pokémon that scares the giant into submission, a Ghost/Poison Type Pokémon known as Gengar. Blue is last seen having run off from the Gengar, as Red is knocked aside by the reawakening humanoid. Red sends out four Pokémon, a Charmander, Pidgey, Pikachu, and a Metapod. All four of them are brutalized by the humanoid before Red manages to secure them each in their Poké Balls prior to her being given the chance to kill them.))**

"So what does that tell us?" Green asks Dexio, as Dexio has one more glance into Red's gaze just to make sure.

 **((Red rushes in a hurry to the Pokémon Center to try and escape from the giant, with the giant being lured away from Red by Blue's Squirtle and the aforementioned Gengar. Red's left leg is broken trying to run on the way back, and he arrives at the Pokémon Center in a panicked state and giving his Pokémon to Nurse Joy to restore their health and try to-))**

"Okay, Dexio, I get you're trying to summarize what happened from Red's perspective, but could you cut to the chase and just tell me what Red intends to do to try and find Blue?"

"Simply put, Blue's whereabouts are currently unknown; between the time it took Red to flee and when he last made visual contact with this humanoid being, that happened within the span of 15 minutes. Blue could be anywhere inside Viridian Forest assuming he doesn't already know how to reach Pewter City first." Dexio states as his eyes turn back to normal, with him putting his blue shades back on in the process, his eyes looking very puffy and watery from what experience he put himself through.

"Right now, I'm kind of blinded by what else I saw in Red's mind to really be of any help; my eyes took quite a number just being able to read and find that much out; the rest was beyond comprehension, unfortunately." Dexio tells Green, as Green nods as she walks towards Red to help him stand up.

"We need to find Blue, before that thing finds him first." Red tells Green, as Green shakes her head.

"And what makes you think I'm going to let you go after him with a broken leg?" Green asks, to which Red simply gives her a neutral gaze.

"… How many Pokémon did you catch between the last time I saw you and now?" Red asks, as the question pierces Green more than she thought the response would. Red's got a point; to keep safe in Viridian Forest with a humanoid monster lurking around, it's best to be safe in numbers, and Green still has only Bulbasaur whereas Red has Charmander and three other Pokémon, as Nurse Joy chimes in with Red's Poké Balls with the Pokémon inside fully healed.

"Your Pokémon have been restored to fighting fit. We hope to see you again." Nurse Joy says to Red, as Green raises an eye as Red takes his Pokémon back.

"Uh… Nurse Joy? Are you some kind of masochist wanting to witness pained Pokémon before you every day on the job?" Green asks, as Nurse Joy tilts her head to the side in a rather cute gesture from the pink haired woman.

"Huh? But I'm only like that with Officer Jenny and a few-… uh… oh… oh dear…" Nurse Joy's face turns beat red as she tries to hide her embarrassed face, before running out of the room altogether in complete humiliation for having admitted that on her own accord before she could stop herself.

Green is confused by what exactly Nurse Joy was implying, but from what she could gather, Dexio's healing eyes showcase an expression behind his shades indicating he knows exactly what Nurse Joy was about to elaborate on more. Dexio gives Green a look, as though to say "never bring that up to her or Officer Jenny at all if you value your life", to which Green flinches and nods to him, even though Dexio didn't even say anything to her at all.

"… Red? How good is your leg right now?" Green asks, pulling an almost complete 180 on her thoughts on Red accompanying her if merely to get out of a very awkward atmosphere right now.

"I can walk, just running might be a problem. I should've known to have taken those special shoes from my mom before I had left today." Red tells Green, as Green is about to nearly question it, before the perpetual Jynx in the room causes her to recall that Blue's still in danger and still very lost, and that they need to hurry and find him before that giant has a chance to catch up to him.

"… Let's just get going. See ya in 3 years, Dexio~!" Green tells Red, pausing before saying the latter, and then blowing Dexio a kiss after she says it, before moving to leave the Pokémon Center with Red. Dexio observes, as Red doesn't immediately follow Green just yet; in fact, he kind of gives a stern look towards Dexio first, before moving to follow Green. His arm and coat move to obscure Green from view, as Dexio simply turns away and sighs.

"This is going to be a fun 3 years. Sina, how do you even do it?"

* * *

A walk consisting of 10 minutes from getting from the Pokémon Center to just inside the entrance to Viridian Forest is what takes Red and Green to finally arrive as to Blue's most recent whereabouts. As Green does not have a hat like Red does, and thus a more immediate means of blocking the rain from hitting her head, she's wearing something… absurd on her head instead.

"Green, what's with the cooking pot?" Red asks, as Green, wearing a cooking pot on her head, doesn't immediately register his question, as she's too focused on finding Blue to bother with trivial details.

"Shhh, do you hear something ahead?" Green asks, with a completely straight face almost as though she's attempting to mimic Red's behavior, but Red simply raises an eye at her weirdly.

However, the looks fade away as something can indeed be heard up ahead; a low, droning sound can be heard, as various scrapes being made between two, undiscernible pieces of metal being heard. Electronic beeping is omnipresent, as a low pulsation of organic and cybernetic nature can be heard, as something can be heard making a weeping sound, in a rather disturbing mix between an older male's voice and a little girl's.

Then came the rising intensity of a static filled, wailing sound of increasingly rising levels of anger and frustration from an unknown source can be heard. Various Pokémon, such as Caterpie, Butterfree, and Beedrill can be seen and heard from all over, fleeing the scene as something is making this noise, and is very, very much heading in Red and Green's direction.

Red and Green both frantically begin to run forward as they attempt to find a way to avoid whatever is approaching; the sounds emanating from this entity seem to give the impression it is as every bit of a giant as pointed out by Dexio back at the Pokémon Center. Very soon, the two are rushing towards the northern gate of Viridian Forest, shortcutting through otherwise sealed off segments of the forest, as they try and figure out what terrain to move on best to avoid getting trampled or maimed by this giant.

However, that's when Red and Green recall too late that Red broke his when fleeing this place before, which causes him to trip and tumble down the hill, crashing against a few trees in the process, before crashing through the roof of a log cabin.

"Red!" Green yells out for him, after sliding down the hill to catch up to him, although part of herself cannot register what she's seeing; an actual housing unit in Viridian Forest? It was plain unheard of, especially in a sanctuary such as Viridian Forest.

However, regardless of how she could think of many ideas on how to argue against the cabin so much as existing here, now was a better time to take shelter than anything; who knows, perhaps Blue is already inside with the same idea, she hopes.

 _'It would certainly make getting us all out of here alive so much easier…'_ Green thought, as Green tries to enter the cabin, looking on each side for the door, only to find no such door exists. Leaving just a small window of opportunity, both figuratively and literally, Green is hastily forced into entering through the sole window since the sound of wailing that was audible this whole time had intensified into violent, mad screaming that was only progressively getting closer to her, with now the audible sound of footsteps being heard; whatever was out here, it weighs more than any Pokémon she could logically think of at the top of her head as being a heavyweight.

Hurrying inside, and closing the blinds that were inside to keep anything from looking in, Green looks for somewhere inside to hide; Red is on the floor, working up the strength to get back on his feet on his own.

"Re-"

Green was nearly about to shout Red's name in worry, but something grabs her from behind and covers her mouth; frantically looking around in panic, she finds the person grasping her as none other than the missing Blue, with the entire trio now finally being back in one place.

"Shhh… She's stalking us." Blue whispers to Green, before letting go of her and moving to tend to Red, "Quick, help me find a spot to hide him." Blue says, as Blue looks down at Red to check his vitals, as Green looks in concern.

"Is he alive?" Green asks, as Blue nods.

"Barely; I don't know how he survived the fall down the hill; must've been fate at this rate, knowing the sheer luck I'm also having. I mean seriously this house feels super convenient even though the thing outside will just smash it to pieces the moment that cunt realizes we're insi-"

Almost as though the sound of a gong could be heard, Green had swiftly taken off the pottery off of her head and rammed it into Blue's face for dare uttering a certain foul word so casually, groaning in disgust all the while as Blue passes out on the ground. Green's moment of fury against Blue quickly fades; something makes a deep, growling sound from just above, as Green looks at the Red shaped hole in the ceiling and covers her mouth to avoid making a sound.

Footsteps that hit the ground with a force of a small crash landing can be heard outside; whatever pursued the trio here isn't just a giant, it's a colossus, as its very footsteps shake the ground so intensely that Green actually hops in place against her own volition from the force of the weight of this gigantic entity.

 _ **{̡̧̀͘G͘͘͘͜͝o̵͠ó̶͠d̛͡ ̵͢͝m̛o̵r͏̵̴̕͜n͏̨͝į́͘͡ņ̷͡g̕͜,̷̡͠҉̨ ̴̢̛̀ţ̡͟͠r͏a̡͢í̛ǹ̡̕͠èr͘͟͟s҉͘~͟͝!͏ ̴͏̢͜C̕͢o̧ḿ̧e͡҉͡ ̀͡҉o̸n̴̡͠͏͡ ̷̨͟͞͡o҉͘҉̧̀u҉̶͜͟t̨́͟͟͟ ̸͜҉a҉̴͢ņ̴͘͘ḑ̡͜ ҉̢͡p̸͢l̵̷҉͜͡a̷͡y͢͡͏̕ ́͘͘͢w͟͡͞i̸̕͏̀t̶̴̨͘͢h̴͘͜͟͝ ̶̛͠m̴̵̧͝ę̴͝͡~͏͟͏̡!̧̀̕͞͝}̸̷**_

Had this been any other situation, such as watching a TV with cartoons playing on loop, Green would've more than likely busted up laughing at the sound of such a childish, girly voice being uttered by such a hulking, deep voiced abomination just outside. However, the fact said voice is originating from just that kills whatever typical silliness to be had with it, if one doesn't happen to be the entity itself.

 _ **{̛͝W̷͞h̢҉̶e̸͜r҉̧̧͟͠e̷̡ ̡̧́͢͠o͏̵̷͞h̵̛͜҉ ̴̀҉̡̛ẃ̧̡̢͠h̀͏͟e̵r̵̡͜é͠͠ ̢҉̛a͘͏ŕ̵͟͞͠ȩ͝ ̸̵̧ỳ̡͏̨̕o̧̨͟͢ư͝,҉̡̀͜͟ ͏̴m̸̛y̡͟ ͞҉̷̶͡l̕͜҉o̴͜v̷̨͜͜e̶̷̕l̴͏̀͘y҉̵̢ ̧̢̛B̵̛͡l̛̛҉u͘͜͟͢ę̷̴~̷̷̕͏?̢̀͘͟}̨̡͜͢**_ The entity seems convinced that it's a small girl; an ordinary young girl and nothing more, despite moving around the forest like a monstrous behemoth. More than likely, Green assumes that because of the entity's childish voice in contrast to what it actually is, people such as Blue and Red had underestimated it by thinking it was more harmless than it really was. Green could only hope she was naïve enough to believe that this colossal entity was harmless.

 _ **{҉͏Ò̵h̸̡̡̛̀ ͟͜͠h҉̸̀͠e̢͜͡͏l̸̶̶̢̀l̢͟͞͞͞ò̵͢͢͡o̶͡ò͘,҉̵̷̢͠ ̕҉G͢͟͏̛ȩ͞r҉̛͘á͢l͢͟͠ḑ̸̴͠͠!̴̷̀͘ ̴̀̕͞T҉͡i̡͢m̡̕͟͝è̷̡͘͟ ͘͜͡t͏͝҉͏o̢͏̨ ̀͡͝͠p̧̢͢l̕҉́͜a̸͟y̡͝͞ ́̀͏h҉̨̛͜ơ̶u̧s̸̕e̶̛͏̛**_ ~̕͢͠͡!͡͡҉̨͡}́̕͏̛ The entity suddenly shouts, towards a person named "Gerald". Whoever that might've been didn't matter soon enough, as the sound of screams of bloody murder could be heard as the stomping intensifies towards the sound of the person found astray elsewhere.

A sickening crunch can be heard as the screams fade away into the sound of a mess of a mauling can be heard outside; the fact the entity was so massive would've guaranteed a swift death, even if the world as Green knew it had been fairly obscure towards the concept of murder as a whole; most criminals got caught too quickly, and even if things escalated to that level, most victims were more valuable alive than dead. Thunder can be heard outside, causing Green to let out a scream from sheer shock when it causes a fire to manifest outside as a tree falls down from the strike, with the rain pouring down at an even more intense rate.

 _ **{̡̀͘͝P̡͜͝͡ȩ͜͝͏ȩ̢̛͟k̀͟͠a҉̡̨̛͠b̡̀̀͠o̵͜ò̶̡̕͘!͟͝ ̴̢̕͝Ì̀͠ ̨̕͘̕s̴̴̸̡e̴͢͜͠͡ę̴̕͜͞ ̷̢̧͠y̷̡͟ǫ͏u͝͠!̨̛͜͝}̴͜**_

Before Green could even process those words, the cabin splits in two with a gigantic, rounded fist from the behemoth body slamming it from outside, as the being quickly gets back up on both feet with astonishing ease. Green's eyes widen in horror, as she recognizes crucial details about this colossus.

The colossus is wearing the same white and purple colored suit type that Mupo and Iaze both wore, meaning this entity was affiliated with the two of them as well. The colossus showcases several features, alongside her aforementioned size, that showcases she isn't from here; the mitten-like hands, giant pillars for feet, and a helmet not only obscuring her whole head atop her overtly obese form, but appearing to not have any visible eyes underneath aside from a singular eye-like sigil in the middle of her visor.

 _ **{̸̵̀͢͜A̸̵̶̛ẁ͘͢w̵͟w̴̧̕̕͜,҉̷̶̨̕ ̵̀́͡ḩ̵̕͜͢o̷̷̶͠w҉ ̕͘͞c͞u̸͘͞t́͘é͟͟͞~̸̡!̶̀͡ ͢͠҉͞I̷̸̢ ̡̀͝f̸́̕͜o̴͏҉̨͡u͟n̸̶̨͞͝d̕͘͡ ̧͞ţ̷͟h̷̢̀́͠e҉̸̶͟҉ ̛̀͘͡w̶̡̨͟͞h̵̸͡o̴̡͟͞ĺ̛͘͠e̡͢͝ ̶̷̧҉̧s͘͝҉̢͡e҉̴͞t̛̀͟͝~̸̛͘͡!̀͢͟͠҉ ̶̵̧̨́Ţ͡i̴̢m̸̨͢͜è̡͢͝ ̸̡́̕͞t҉o̶͝҉ ҉̨͡d̷̨̕i̶̧̢͡͠ę̀̕͞~́͞!͘͠}̡́̀̀͘**_ The giant speaks towards Green with her dissonant serenity and cheerful tone, even despite her stomping towards Green and readying her arms to smash her into a bloody pulp.

A powerful bolt of lightning smites the ground before Green as it continuously strikes the same spot almost like a laser beam, completely forcing the giant onto her backside from the sheer gale wind generated from the electrical surge.

Large, flapping wings can be heard making a descent towards the ground, as Green stares in awe as something descends from the sky; a vast, predatory bird, with spike layered wings and a drill-like beak, colored yellow and black with a piercing gaze facing the fallen giant.

Zapdos has decided to interfere with this abomination's so called "game".


	8. Chapter 7: Feud with Fuidi

**AN: To answer the guest review regarding whether this is a shipping story of BurningLeaf, I do recommend everyone read the tags or lack thereof before they ask such a thing. The characters listed are Red, Blue, and Green, but neither of the three have a shipping tag applied to them. I also think I this point I should decline the chance the answer exactly which ships are in effect if any at all, considering it's a tad too early in the story for me to say.**

 **Edit: Also apparently I overlooked a few bits by accident, so I'm adding them in here. Nothing real major.**

 **Starlight Ablaze Chapter 7:**

* * *

A droning sound, an electronic beeping, a cybernetic and organic pulsation, all to the tune of the sound of an old man and a young girl wailing and screaming all the while; these are not natural sounds, and neither is the being whom they originate from.

Zapdos is not deterred by the intensity of this ambience, nor to the humanoid's twitching movements as it lets out very lengthy screams of agony and pure, unadulterated rage that sound disturbingly more human than this colossal entity logically should sound.

The intensity of the electricity surrounding Zapdos is quickly absorbed into the Legendary Bird Pokémon; Zapdos' entire body becomes a metallic gold coloration, as Zapdos suddenly lets out a frenzied cry as the stored energy fires itself into the air, high into the sky beyond visibility, before crashing down into the humanoid abomination before it like a laser beam more so than a lightning bolt.

The abomination suddenly launches a punch straight into Zapdos with her gigantic fist that actually connects; Zapdos recoils from the attacks and crashes into a few trees, its own electricity surrounding itself causing the trees to ignite into flames. The fires of the forest surrounds Zapdos at this point, as not even the intense rain is enough to put them out.

Then the abomination begins her charge from the midst of these flames; moving at an intense speed, faster than Zapdos could even react, the entity quickly grabs hold of Zapdos and holds the Legendary Bird towards her chest, before jumping up high into the air, Zapdos positioned beneath her, as she slams down into the ground with the force of a meteorite.

As this occurs, the intense ambience generated by the abomination, as well as her non-stop screaming of a mix of anguish and overall ferocity increases tenfold, as she moves to quickly get back up on her feet. Zapdos lets out a sharp cry, as a massive thunderbolt strikes the colossus on her backside, causing her to recoil immensely from the sheer pain caused by Zapdos' strike against her. Cinders of sorts begin to rain from the sky, as her monocular eye focuses on Zapdos in fury, as if literally seeing red in the night sky before her.

Zapdos flies back up into the air, seemingly unharmed from the giant's attack, as Zapdos notices the burning surroundings of the white and purple giant, and gets an idea. Zapdos, flapping its wings at an immense turbulence and causing the tropical storm level winds to manifest in seconds flat next to it, uproots entire trees and other vegetation and tosses them onto the giant to try and cover her with as much of it as possible.

The giant stumbles over and falls, still feeling the immense, literal shock of the pain of her backside being struck by thunder, as the paralysis is starting to wear off as she moves to get back up and begin to charge towards Zapdos. Not even the tropical storm level winds are enough to slow her down, and she just snaps trees thrown her way like insignificant twigs. Zapdos quickly realizes that the effort it's trying to pull is far from its own element to control, as to deal with the giant is now beyond its own power.

As the giant grabs Zapdos in her fists, her crushing grip against the Legendary Bird Pokémon being blocked by Zapdos' surging, electrical aura; Zapdos, in a raging fury of electricity generating around itself, manifests an entire sphere of electricity around itself in a circling tornado. Zapdos, suddenly glaring the giant as though suddenly gaining a smirk with its beak, suddenly lets loose the electrical aura explodes around itself in a gigantic wave of energy.

The giant's suit suddenly begins to spark around itself after the sheer exposure to electrical energy, as the electrical surge gathers around the giant's neck, before suddenly causing an immense surge of electrical currents spark around the giant's entire body, especially around her helmet covered head.

 _ **{̨͝͏H̛̕͞Ǫ̸̸́͠T͏̴҉ ̵̷̨̡̛I̷͜͡Ņ̶̕͝͡ ̸̧̢͘͢H̷̡E̢҉͘͢R͢͢͠͞Ę́͟͟!́͜ ̶̢̡̛Ḩ̧̕O̡̡͢҉̛T͝ ̵̛Į̴̀͝N̡̨͢͡͡ ̛͞H̵̸̕͜È̸̛Ŕ̨͠E͜͞!̸͝ ̵͠H͏̛Ó̴͢͏T̀͏͞ ̸̨͢͜͝I̵N̷͢ ̢̨̛͢͠H͏̨E͘͘͝R͘͏̶͟É͝҉!̴́ ̢̨̛́͟H̶̵̸͠͠Ó̵͝T̴̀̕͢ ͢I̛҉N͘͝ ̴̸̶͞͡H̵̀͜͠E̷̶͜͡͝R̴̛͡͡E̴͟͡!̵̨}͞͞**_

The giant yells in a sense of madness as her body is constantly surging in electrical energy it has no inherent defense against like how Zapdos does, as the giant's helmet covered head experiences a significantly more massive surge that sounds like a bomb going on, as the helmet spins around like a spinning top in place, her neck snapping with an undefined cracking sound being made, before falling over either forward or backwards flat onto the ground. Zapdos couldn't tell which, if merely because Zapdos didn't recall where the giant's face is.

Zapdos isn't quite sure what to make of what happens next, as a sudden, louder cry echoes through the depths of the forest remaining, as an icy blue colored, gigantic _Eucladoceros_ -esque stag Pokémon shows itself before Zapdos. As Zapdos lets out a sharp cry towards the unknown Pokémon, before the stag lets out a sharp, high pitched cry into the air, as a gigantic array of colors begin to radiate from itself, its antlers growing additional, multi-colored points as the Pokémon's own aura regenerates the entire forest around itself en masse. With room to fly very rapidly being taken up by the massive growth of instant forest being opened, Zapdos flees the scene while it still can as it's not used to seeing such a sight.

The roots of a massive tree begins to grow over top the giant, to pin her down, as the large stag slowly walks towards the remains of the ruined cabin before itself. Green is shakily hiding inside the remains, curled up underneath the bed, as Red and Blue are slowly coming to and gazing upon the near 10 foot tall, life bringing Pokémon before them, standing as though its own silhouette forms the letter "X" before the trio. Red, Blue, and Green gaze upon the Pokémon with an immense sense of awe, their fears of the giant having been eased by the calming presence of the Pokémon before them.

Such an array of colors forming from the Pokémon's massive antlers were unlike anything the trio had ever seen prior, as they could only bare witness as the Pokémon disappears in an array of light, as multi-colored flowers manifest from its body as it disappears seemingly amidst the flowers flowing before itself; three of the flowers float down towards Red, Blue, and Green, with the flowers starting off a colorless variety.

Upon one touching Red, it glows an immense, eye catching red. Upon another touching Blue, it took the form of a sparkling, crystal cyan type of color amidst navy blue waves. Lastly, upon the sole remaining one touching Green, it blooms into a bright, green and yellow display of large petals with a very flavor filled aroma filling Green's senses as she observes the flowers before her.

Each of the three, practically crystal forged flowers, begin to close into buds before each of the three, each taking the form of an incomplete sphere; a sphere recognizable to Blue and Green as a Key Stone. Red, uncertain of what this means, is approached by Blue and Green with their incomplete portions of the Key Stone being given to Red out of an unknown reaction in their minds. Watching as Red's fragment merges with the other two's fragments, they form a completed Key Stone before Red's own, widening eyes, as he gazes upon the other two before him.

"Well… This has definitely been… something, to say the least." Red says, completely uncertain what to make of all that has happened.

"To think a Legendary Pokémon would actually go out of its way to save us from that giant woman, considering they tend to avoid humans at all costs." Green mumbles, as Blue listens to her and looks around at the completely healed Viridian Forest before them.

"Honestly, I'd say it had ulterior motives for doing so, considering that giant kind of destroyed much of the forest in its brawl with Zapdos." Blue says to the two, as Red nods as he looks around.

"That doesn't explain the other, larger Pokémon that showed up though. Was that a Legendary Pokémon as well, perhaps?" Red asks, as Green looks at how Viridian Forest had been ablaze in her gaze prior to the stag showing up, but is now better than ever as a peaceful night takes hold of the atmosphere before them.

"Considering its ability to effectively open up a can of instant forest, I wouldn't even put a price to how much I'd bet that I can't be convinced otherwise that this life bringing Pokémon is a Legendary Pokémon." Green answers, as Blue shakes his head.

"Gramps never told me about such a Pokémon before in all of my years growing up with him in the household. Maybe it's some new Pokémon he had no idea even existed?" Blue asks, as Red and Green look around to try and find where exactly in Viridian Forest they, now that they know that the forest has been completely more than just restored.

"Anybody have a compass that tells us which way North is? I think we're too far into Viridian Forest for us to just go back to Viridian City, so Pewter City would have to be our best bet..." Green says, as she slowly yawns. Red, recalling that Green had bought camping equipment, moves to grab her bag and try and get some of it out and ready for them to use to prepare to get some sleep.

"Either way, even with most of our injuries healed as well, I think it would be best for us all to worry about getting some sleep. The night is still young, and perhaps it would be wise if you two finally caught more Pokémon for your own at the very least." Red tells Blue and Green, as the two of them nod, as they reach for their Poké Balls around their belt and quickly notice something.

"Huh? Where's our starter?" Blue and Green both speak simultaneously, as Red moves to reach for his own Poké Balls in response; Red's eyes widen, as he realizes his Poké Balls containing his own Pokémon have also gone missing as well.

"… This is going to be a long night at this rate." Blue remarks, as Green works on unpacking camping supplies from her bag while she looks at Red and Blue with an idea in mind.

"Alright, I think I got this then; whichever of you two is more than capable of staying up to find our Pokémon will go search for them, they can't be too far away at this rate. Meanwhile, one of you is going to have to stay behind with me to help set up camp, and also to make sure if any suspicious movement comes from the 'little' girl over there."

Green doesn't even get to turn around and face the mass of trees and vines summoned to restrain the giant at, before Red and Blue both gawk at the large mass of wood to see a massive hole had already long formed from outside of it, and from the way the jutting wood was angled, the giant had already broken free without their notice.

"… So that thing just broke out without even so much as making a sound?!" Green asks, as Blue nods.

"Red, stay with Green, you're in the least condition to go up against whatever is out there while our Pokémon are missing. I'll handle recovering our Pokémon by myself." Blue orders Red, as Red nods and moves to assist Green with setting up camp. Green looks over towards Blue, grabbing her Pokégear from her pocket as she holds it in the air.

"Make sure to actually call me this time in case something happens!" Green shouts to Blue as he ends up walking away from her and Red, as Blue nods from where he is and holds his own Pokégear up to signal her he will.

* * *

' _You actually intervened with regards to the forest; here I thought you were a rather unforgiving one. Regardless, I hope you realize that Order might be trying to go after you at some point after your little stunt.'_

 _ **((I am Order; if the Order Pokémon does wish to confront me, then so be it. All I did was simply restore an innocent forest to its proper standing and more, even if I did have to use the form of the Life Pokémon to do so.))**_

' _I'm kind of surprised you even went as far as to generate a Key Stone for the boy with the Charmander. Still, though, do you think it was wise for us to have taken their Poké Balls from them without their notice?'_

 _ **((Façade would've smashed the Pokémon to bits if they were even remotely caught in the crossfire in any way, I did them a favor by making sure Zapdos would also ensure the safety of their trainers.))**_

The cloaked figure from Route 1 and an unknown entity are speaking with each other in an unknown tone; Red's Charmander, Blue's Squirtle, and Green's Bulbasaur are all observing this. The two entities appear to be feline shaped in general structure, as Charmander seems wary of the two, as if having recognized them on sight. Squirtle and Bulbasaur, meanwhile, are confused as to how they can easily see the much larger, humanoid Pokémon in the cloak, but can barely make out a defined shape for the second, smaller Pokémon, as though it was nothing more than an illusory sight before them.

' _I will depart for now, mother; I will continue to observe the boy's Charmander as I have for some time now. It is best you do the same, should the human authority figures try and rush to the scene to investigate what had transpired here.'_ The humanoid figure speaks, before vanishing into thin air away from the scene. The illusory Pokémon remains behind, briefly, to tilt its head when Charmander angrily hisses towards it.

Bulbasaur and Squirtle, and even Charmander, still can't make out a definitive shape for the Pokémon, yet alone exactly what emotions it is exhibiting right now with its intent; the three Pokémon do not realize that this Pokémon is aware of Blue approaching this area to search for them, so when the illusory Pokémon finally fades away, they think the three of them, alongside Red's three other caught Pokémon, were all left behind on purpose.

Charmander looks towards Pidgey, Pikachu, and Metapod, growling and snarling orders towards the three, as the three Pokémon chirp, squeak, and make some clicking sound respectively towards Charmander. Metapod moves to spray the ground with silk from its facial plate armor, as if laying down a bedding material, as Pikachu and Pidgey move to collect berries from the nearby shrubs and trees respectively.

Squirtle and Bulbasaur don't know what to process Charmander's vocalizations as being; they witness that Charmander is already taking authority over the other three Pokémon that Red all has ownership of, himself included, but with Squirtle and Bulbasaur having no other associates still, they question how exactly to approach Charmander.

Squirtle didn't quite like Charmander's harsh sounding attitude; the fact it so readily barked orders to Red's other Pokémon made him come across as too feisty and or aggressive for her own temper. Bulbasaur, meanwhile, moved a vine from his bulb to pat Squirtle on the shoulder, as if to say they should rest and stay in one place, should their trainers have any hopes of finding them. Squirtle turns away, folding her arms in the process, as if to question what makes Bulbasaur so certain that they'll be able to find them.

Bulbasaur points a vine towards Charmander in particular, croaking a bit towards Squirtle as though to tell her that Charmander, as their trainers had already taken notice, is not native to anywhere near Viridian Forest, and that a Charmander outside of its Poké Ball will stick out like a sore thumb. Squirtle, though reluctant to budge towards Bulbasaur's point, exhales a bit of hot air as she looks towards Charmander observing Metapod having built an entire small shelter out of nothing but loose sticks and silk, big enough for all six of them to keep shelter in.

Pikachu and Pidgey return with a few collections of berries, mostly Razz and Nanab Berries, with a Pinap Berry or two being in the mix as well. Pidgey's stance upon perching has its eyes closed as its overall body looking smooshed in place. Charmander hisses towards Pidgey to ask what's going on with the overtly content look Pidgey has, but Pidgey refuses to budge.

Charmander, his claws lengthening into sharp, metallic blades, move to carefully reach underneath of Pidgey, and then grab and retrieve what are a full dozen of Oran Berries hidden underneath of it, as Pidgey only now moves in a frustrated amount of chirping towards Charmander. Pidgey had seemed more than content to hide those berries from Charmander, Pikachu, and Metapod, all the while Charmander sheathes his claws for the time being, moving to hand out berries on his own to Squirtle, in the form of a single Razz and Oran Berry to her for food.

Squirtle gnashes with her teeth in an angry grunting sound towards Charmander, as though trying to ask about what Bulbasaur was going to eat, since she doesn't see Charmander giving him food as well. Charmander, pointing out to Bulbasaur a few feet away, has Squirtle turn and see that Bulbasaur is already chowing down on an entire bush of leaves, without any berries in sight for what Bulbasaur was eating.

Squirtle, looking dully at Charmander as though feigning a compliment towards Charmander, moves to sit and eat her own berries as Charmander sets his hands as his sides and moves to check on the small nest Metapod had built for everyone. Pidgey shoots everyone a bit of a glare, as though heavily disinterested in everyone's group effort, as it watches as Pikachu moves towards Squirtle in an unexpected gesture of patting her on the head with its tail; the rectangular shape of Pikachu's tail gives away the fact it's a male, as Squirtle gnashes her teeth aggressively in display to get Pikachu to back off.

As the six Pokémon prepare for sleep that night, Blue has spent most of the night wandering in search in of them to seemingly no avail. He can't tell where he is in Viridian Forest anymore, or how far he's traveled from Red and Green, just to find the three of their Pokémon, but little does he know he's choosing to lay down closer to where they are then he'd expect.

Grabbing a sleeping bag from his backpack, Blue readies a spot on the ground for him to sleep. "Maybe they'll have a better chance finding us if we're in two different spots at once." Blue mumbles to himself, before tucking himself into his sleeping bag, before moving to grab his Pokégear from his pocket, recalling Green's passive-aggressive scolding of him to call her this time, considering last time he forgot to.

Dialing for Green, Blue waits as the Pokégear rings, repeatedly ringing until it eventually disconnects; Green must've fallen asleep, he thought, as he didn't even realize when exactly he would fall asleep as well. As he mumbles in his certainly slurring voice from his increasing tiredness, Blue doesn't even realize that his Squirtle had already found him as he sleeps.

Squirtle, after having walked a yard or two away from Charmander's camp, moves to squeeze herself into Blue's sleeping bag with him, and snuggling up to him and very quickly falling asleep. As both trainer and Pokémon are asleep at this point of night, the illusory form of the smaller Pokémon from before manifests itself above Blue's shut gaze, before moving to seemingly vanish in small bursts as it leaves a trail of crystalized dust as it departs, heading towards the north for Pewter City.

Pewter City would be the next place in mind for Red, Blue, and Green alike, and little do they know that their journey has only just begun. A first day of many impressions of new people and Pokémon alike, they could only wonder what is in store for them the next day.


	9. Chapter 8: Solar Eclipse

**Starlight Ablaze Chapter 8:**

* * *

{Oi, where's the brat? Do any of you two copy?!} Mupo's harsh voice can be heard through a communication network in her helmet. {I repeat, do any of you two brats copy at all?!}

{Ya ya, what of me?} A slurring, bored sounding voice of a teenaged man speaks up. His voice's overall youth seems to indicate being of the same age of Red and co., with Mupo letting out a harsh growl.

{About time you respond, pest. Where have you been?! Mother's not exactly going to be happy with your extended absence.} Mupo scolds the teenaged man, with the man simply groaning in embarrassment.

{Does it matter? I was catching a Nidoran and I need to find a Moon Stone. I swear, Mt. Moon has the worst exposed ore veins of the stuff despite being named after these things…} The teenager rants in a small burst in mostly plain irritation more than frustration. From his point of view, he appears to be in a city of some kind, with a museum to the north; the teenager eyes the museum inquisitively, as he ponders about what could prove useful right about now.

{Regardless of what exactly you plan on doing with that rodent, you'd better hurry back home before mother begins asking the rest of us where you are again; you know how much of a fuss she puts us all through whenever _you_ go missing on one of your ventures.}

{I'll head home alright; just after I finally acquire the Nidoking I so badly desire on my team. Even with mom breaking the bank on my starter it doesn't ultimately mean jack sh-}

{Teenager?! Are you defying my orders yet again?! You do realize your insufferableness has already caused us too much trouble for today, and-}

{You, trouble? I thought looking after Façade was _my_ job.}

A deafening silence, alongside any white noise from radio static, occurs for a good while upon the unnamed teenager mentioning that particular name. After three minutes of silence, the teenager had already hung up before Mupo would have a chance to respond. Iaze, looking down towards Mupo as he crouches to even in height with her, gestures to her to ignore their teenaged relative for now.

{Sure, we'll cover for him. Though worry not; I'm not intending on saving face for him the next time he shows up to mother as an inevitable failure.}

* * *

Blue awakens to the sound of his Pokégear ringing. As he moves to answer it, he unknowingly grabs Squirtle's head, only just now realizing she's asleep beside him, as Blue's eyes shoot open wide. As he moves to get out of his sleeping bag, Blue grabs his Pokégear from his pocket and answers it. "Hello?"

"Blue, Red and I are just about done packing up and heading on our way to Pewter City. Did you find our Pokémon by any chance?" Green asks on the other end, as Blue looks down as he sees his Squirtle slowly waking up.

"Well, I found Squirtle…" Blue says with a pause, as he looks around, hearing the sounds of other Pokémon still asleep; he can distinctly make out Charmander and Bulbasaur's vocalizations from the grove he's in, as he moves up a hill of vines to see the two of them, as well as Red's Pidgey, Pikachu, and Metapod all sleeping in a well-knit structure of silk and wood.

"… And she apparently must've led me to the others as well, considering I had chosen to sleep startling not very far from them." Blue tells Green, as Blue checks the reception on his Pokégear. "If by any means you have a tracking system on your Pokégear, you can find me with the six of them just about several minutes away from you and Red." Blue says, as he looks around and sees a sign nearby.

"Pewter City – North 1 km"

"Incidentally, I appear to be closer to Pewter City than you two are right now." Blue tells Green, as he hears something rustling in the grass, as Squirtle wakes up upon hearing something draw near to her and Blue.

"Alright, we'll be there when we can, just try and pass the time seeing if you can catch any Pokémon." Green tells Blue, as Blue groans.

"No need to tell me twice." Blue states, as he hangs up, and moves to grab a Poké Ball from his belt, as he then proceeds to head towards the sound of the rustling in the grass. Appearing from the grass is a rather small, purple and tan colored rodent, which Blue pulls out his Pokédex to begin to scan for data on it.

"Rattata, the-" Blue cut off his Pokédex from finishing, as the moment he realized he was scanning a Rattata he immediately face palmed at the fact his first instinct was to scan it with his Pokédex.

"Why did I even bother scanning something so commonplace across this entire friggin' region?" Blue says with a groaning voice, as Blue nevertheless tosses a Poké Ball in his hand to secure his grip on it, before launching it towards Rattata after rotating his wrist to keep the Poké Ball pointed away from him the whole duration of the throw. The Poké Ball, when thrown, seemingly missed its mark had it not been for its sudden curve towards Rattata like a homing projectile.

The button on the Poké Ball pressing against the clueless Rattata and opening up, Rattata is dragged inside of a red laser which draws in all of Rattata's body into itself, before the Poké Ball closes around the red laser and hits the ground.

 _One shake, two shakes, three shakes… *click*_

"Heh! First try, as to be expected of me."

"To be expected of who, if I may ask so boldly?" A smooth, deep voice speaks with a bit of a hint of a growling tone towards Blue, seemingly coming from nowhere in range, as Blue looks around in confusion.

"Who said that? Who is there?" Blue asks, to which Blue is greeted with chuckling from the same source, which Blue and Squirtle turn to look up and notice something- no, someone, in the trees, jumping down from a large branch as he pulls off a backflip, a twirl of his legs, before flipping to where his head faces the ground, as with a single palm of his hand, managing to touch the ground with absolute grace, before launching himself back up into the air to pull a spinning flip, before landing on both feet on the ground just a yard ahead of Blue, with both of the stranger's hands raised outwards as if expecting applause.

"Pretty nice stunt work, but I don't recall the circus having entered town." Blue remarks about the mysterious teenager before him, as the man simply chuckles, as the figure's eyes are closed.

"I aim to be perfection, after all." The teen says, as he opens his eyes, revealing shining, magenta colored pupils that radiate with his own silver hair, Blue begins to realize something a little too late, as his expression becomes a glare towards the unnamed teen. Blue notices that, despite not wearing a helmet that the teen before him is wearing the white and purple uniform he's seen with Mupo, Iaze, and Façade.

"You! You're one of _them!_ The 0Ω!" Blue states to the man with his teeth gritting as he holds his glare; he had no liking towards these strangers after what he saw Iaze do to Red's Charmander, and especially what happened last night when Façade was stalking him while also trying to kill not just him, but his two friends as well. The teen, though, merely scoffs a bit towards Blue with a frown.

"Oh, foolish young Oak you are; I am not part of the 0Ω, I am _the_ 0Ω, the one and only!" 'Zero Omega' introduces himself, as he looks towards Blue as he readies three Poké Balls in one go, quickly hiding the initial two, as he calls out the Pokémon in the first of which, contained in a Premier Ball.

"Behold, the pinnacle of potential this entire region has to offer; a male Nidoran, the male Nidoran of yours truly." Zero Omega states to Blue, as if he's expecting Blue to be impressed and practically groveling before him due to his smug expression and large smirk towards Blue. Squirtle notices something isn't what it seems with this Nidoran; his eyes are completely glazed over red in anger, and he's perpetually twitching in place.

"So, are you expecting me to battle you?" Blue asks, to which Zero Omega before him merely chuckles, as he snaps his fingers; Nidoran before them proceeds to ram into Blue with a sheer amount of blunt force, its horn jabbing into Blue's torso, as he jumps off and backs away from Blue. Blue, getting back up from the attack, as Blue's newly acquired Rattata jumps out from its Poké Ball on cue and steps in front of Blue to confront Zero Omega's Nidoran.

"I'm not taking no for an answer, if you so wish to dare have any dignity from me." Zero Omega taunts, as Blue gets back up and tries to figure out what command to give Rattata, as he realizes the stakes are at a fairly high amount; Zero Omega will simply have Nidoran attack Blue had Rattata not jumped onto the field to be this Nidoran's first opponent proper.

"Alright, seems like I have no other choice. How many Pokémon are we using here?" Blue asks, as if expecting Zero Omega to have a fair answer.

"Two, just two and two alone, I assure you that much." Zero Omega states with a voice full of smarm, as though Blue's gaze was slowly beginning to turn red.

"Alright, Rattata! Quick Attack!" Blue commands, as Rattata rushes forward, making mouse-like squeaks towards Nidoran all the while.

"Nidoran! Toxic!" Zero Omega calls, as Nidoran's poisonous spines manifest all across his body, and are subsequently launched into Rattata with the precision of a homing missile; no matter which part of the small clearing Rattata runs, or even how quickly at that, the needles of severe poison always managed to catch up and maintained precise accuracy all the while.

Rattata, quickly ramming itself into Nidoran and shoves him aside harshly, Rattata quickly returns to where it was in the blink of an eye, but the poisonous projectiles suddenly make contact with Rattata, as Rattata experiences a sickening burn through its own skin as its skin practically turns a putrid shade of purple as the tan of its body is glazed over a dark, sickening looking violet.

"This isn't good, Squirtle, take Rattata's place!" Blue calls, as he tries to reach for Squirtle's Poké Ball, as he realizes he still doesn't have it on hand, but thankfully, Squirtle is right next to him and immediately takes Rattata's place on the battlefield, as Rattata is called back to its own Poké Ball.

'No way I can have Rattata continue fighting without knowing what ability it has after a stunt like that.' Blue thinks to himself in the heat of the moment, before pointing towards Nidoran. "Alright, Squirtle! Use Bubble!" Blue calls, as Squirtle nods and proceeds to inhale and breathe out numerous bubbles which scatter around Nidoran, before all of them explode into violent splashes of water which hit Nidoran with force akin to one's backside falling flat on the surface water of a pool.

Nidoran doesn't so much as register the pain, as its reddened eyes only grow angrier in expression, as it lets out some kind of frenzied, high pitch squealing sound.

"Alright, time for the halftime show! Nidoran, Horn Drill!" Zero Omega calls, as Nidoran's singular horn on the front of his head enlarges, before Nidoran jumps up and down, gaining height each time, before spinning in the air like a violent drilling machine of sorts, before taking aim at Squirtle.

"Squirtle! Withdraw!" Blue orders, as he doesn't even hear Zero Omega darkly chuckling behind Nidoran's drilling sound, as Squirtle, nervously, does what she is told, and folds up into her own shell to hide and defend herself. Zero Omega, with a snap of his fingers, has Nidoran collide into Squirtle with the force of a large building falling atop Squirtle; Nidoran's horn begins to cause cracks to appear in Squirtle's shell, as a smoldering crater digs itself beneath Squirtle from the force of the impact.

With a snap of his finger, Zero Omega's Nidoran stops the attack, as Squirtle is down for the count.

"You've still got one more Pokémon left, ya know." Zero Omega points out, "Oh, and his ability is Guts. Take advantage of that why don't ya?" Zero Omega points out regarding Blue's Rattata, as Blue scowls towards him in response.

"As if I were to believe you, prick." Blue says, as he had managed to find Squirtle's Poké Ball by this point and-

"How about no." Zero Omega's eyes suddenly shine with an immense, blinding flash straight into Blue's gaze; with Blue recoiling from the shock of the flash of light, Zero Omega moves to take out a Poké Ball for himself, presumably his second Pokémon, as he calls back Nidoran.

"Now here's where the fun begins!" Zero Omega calls, as the Poké Ball in hands spins in place with some unknown force powering it, as the Poké Ball's button flashes with a black coloration, before Zero Omega throws it out, "Go! Snag Ball!" Zero Omega calls, as the Poké Ball impacts with Squirtle and forces her inside, the usual red laser aura from catching a Pokémon instead appearing as a poisonous looking black mist, and shutting itself around the black energy without a hitch. Blue's eyes finally recover from the flash, as he looks on in to see Zero Omega attempting to catch Blue's own Squirtle.

 _One shake, two shakes, three shakes…_

"Heh, like that'll work; a Pokémon already bound to a Poké Ball can't-"

 _*click*_

Blue's eyes widen in what could only be described in immense horror as to what sound he heard, as Zero Omega reclaims the Poké Ball as though simply plucking it from the ground without so much as having to move. Zero Omega simply shoots Blue a haunting, sly smile with an intense gaze fixated on his own.

"Round 2, begin." Zero Omega states with the utmost of calmness, his sadism leaking through his tone all the more clearly this time around, as Zero Omega calls out his next Pokémon; none other than Blue's own Squirtle, only now she appears different; her eyes are now also glazed over red much like Nidoran's own.

"Alright you dick, how's about I simply dial the authorities on you and-"

Blue should've considered the possibility before it struck him; Squirtle now lashed out at him, gnashing her teeth all the while, as Squirtle bites down onto Blue's left arm as Blue, horrified in expression, tries to get her to let go, as Squirtle bites down with enough strength to cause bleeding to occur on Blue's arm, as Blue's hearing practically zone out of the scene before him.

'How… how could she…?' Blue thinks to himself, his thoughts echoing throughout his mind, as he only wakes up to the sound of Zero Omega's fingers snapping yet again, as Squirtle releases Blue's arm from her jaws, before jumping back towards Zero Omega, performing a flip in the process, as Zero Omega calls her back to his Poké Ball.

"S-Squirtle, no…!" Blue speaks, his voice feeling utterly betrayed, as his right hand moves to grab his left arm where Squirtle had bitten down on him so readily eager to accept Zero Omega's thieving ownership of her. Blue, looking down at his blood red right hand as he realizes his left arm is still bleeding, moves to cover his left arm with his hand again to try and get the bleeding to stop.

"… Worthless." Zero Omega buts in to Blue's train of thought, as well as Blue's personal space, before proceeding to grab Blue by the head and head butt him onto the ground below, as Zero Omega stomps his boot into Blue's chest with his perpetual smirk once again present on his face, before Zero Omega swaps it out for a more serious, scowling frown of seeming disappointment.

"Don't show your pathetic face to me ever again." Zero Omega states in a very quiet, cold demeanor towards Blue, as Blue's eyes are widened in utter horror as to Zero Omega's gaze stare down before him, only for the sadistic trainer to leave, without even so much as dignifying Blue with actually literally kicking him while he's down, as Zero Omega disappears without a trace.

Several minutes pass, as Blue's eyes are drained of all sense of normal emotion by the time Red and Green finally arrive; both of them are already too late to have seen or even heard Zero Omega in the area prior, as Green does let out a gasp as to Blue's left arm, which Blue had thankfully bandaged up sometime within the minutes before their arrival. Red notices, with widening eyes, that Blue's lack of emotion on his eyes while sitting at not even remotely anything he'd expect to see from him.

"Blue, are you alright?" Red asks, to which Blue doesn't even respond to; his movements are almost zombie-like as he moves to stand up, all the while emotion seems to come back to his gaze, only for him to constantly avert his gaze from the other two.

"He took her; my grandfather's Pokémon, one of many of his prized Pokémon, now stolen by some lowly thief!" Blue yells out, as tears form from his eyes all the while, before Blue suddenly lets out a fierce scream towards the sky in complete, unrestrained rage about his lose to Zero Omega.

"Blue, do you still have Squirtle's Poké Ball? We can still track her if you still have it!" Red tries to reassure Blue, as Green notices the bundle of Poké Balls surrounding her and Red's Pokémon, as Green collects what is presumably Squirtle's own Poké Ball, before upon attempting to open it to try and activate its tracking feature, it simply crumbles away into dust, to Green's utter shock.

"Red, I don't think whoever took so merely took Squirtle by herself… Her Poké Ball just shattered, which for that to have happened must mean that-" Green interrupts herself, as she looks towards Blue, hoping he'll come to his senses enough to tell her and Red what had happened.

"That guy's Poké Ball; he threw it at her while I was blinded, and despite the lockout mechanics, he just caught her as though she was a wild Pokémon and nothing more! That shouldn't have happened; it couldn't have happened like that!"

"So how did these injuries on your arm happen then?" Red asks, to which Blue looks at him rather harshly.

"Squirtle attacked me like she didn't even recall who I was; as though the bastard all but stated to the world that my Squirtle; my grandfather's pride and joy among our starters, now officially belonged to him."


	10. Chapter 9: Charmless

**Starlight Ablaze Chapter 9:**

* * *

It is a solemn pre-noon hour at this point. Blue's emotional point has hit an all-time low, from what little Green knows of him, but as far as Red is concerned, he's never seen Blue like this before now.

Blue is doing what he can to try and deal with the fact Squirtle was just stolen from him; as much as he tries to focus on his Rattata he now has, he still has difficulty on the back of his mind, even though he does his best to hide it on his exterior. Half an hour has passed since Red and Green found him, and right now they are just outside the southern gate to Pewter City.

"Well, here we are." Green points out, as she looks at the sign reading "Pewter City – A Stone Gray City". The description is not far off; the buildings are of a stone gray coloration, with the exception of the Poké Mart and Pokémon Center. Aside from an exterior sign also featuring said stone gray color, the Pokémon Center and Poké Mart retain their signature red and blue colorations on their roofs.

Red, Blue, and Green all look forward; differing thoughts in mind, but none of them are quick enough to register something swift moving jumping from a tree and grabbing Red's hat. Red's eyes widen, as he looks over towards where the rush of wind stopped at on the ground.

On the ground is some kind of fuzzy ball consisting of monkey-like arms, legs, and a tail, with the muzzle of a pig. Blue moves to scan the Pokémon with his Pokédex, due to not having been this far north in Kanto before.

"Mankey, the Pig Monkey Pokémon. An agile Pokémon that lives in trees. It angers easily and will not hesitate to attack anything." The Pokédex reads to Blue, as he checks the Pokédex's other details for his own benefit.

' _Fighting Type, ability is Vital Spirit. One of its moves known is Low Kick.'_

Blue is contemplating things almost as though time has stopped around him as he thinks to himself regarding this. He is by no means going to be anywhere near close to getting over losing Squirtle; he knows he wants to attempt to get her back from Zero Omega, but he doesn't have a means as to how. That being said, even without Squirtle, the Mankey before him has all of the info he knows he needs to realize that, if he catches it, he'll have the upper hand against Brock.

"My hat!" Red points out, snapping Blue out of his train of thought, as Mankey winds up running away from the group into Viridian Forest. Green is about to make chase, but is stopped from doing so by Red, without Blue having noticed.

"I'll get it!" Blue states, as he runs after Mankey, both to get Red's hat back, but also to attempt to catch it. Red forcefully holds Green in place from her shoulder, as Green looks over towards Red in an awkward glance.

"Let him have the Mankey to himself if he can catch it; I'm hoping it'll help him regain his confidence in himself." Red tells Green, as Green looks on towards Viridian Forest's entrance.

"Should we help him catch it?" Green asks, to which Red shakes his head no.

"His pride as an Oak won't allow him to repair his confidence if we assist him; he needs this to prove he can recover on his own." Red states to Green, as he moves to leave towards Pewter City, letting go of Green.

"Go figure that his pride wouldn't allow us to interfere, but I'm confused, Red. How did you know of this?" Green asks, as she moves to follow Red to Pewter City. Red, simply glancing at her from aside with a raised eye, answers her question for her.

' _Of course… Red and Blue have known each other since they were babies, so naturally he would know him better than I would.'_ Green thought, as she continues to walk along with Red.

Something felt different in Green's mind, as the two simply walk along; she never really had seen Red prior without his hat, as she tries to glance from aside towards Red to look at him. Just seeing how he looks without his hat, something clicks in Green's mind, but she isn't able to process what it is. She notes that Red looks almost entirely different without his hat, but something about her looking at him seems… off.

Red stops where he is; he looks at Green with a bit of confusion, wondering why Green was staring at him. Green stops as well, a few steps ahead of Red, as she looks back towards him. Suddenly looking Red in his eyes caused confusion within Green's mind, causing her to turn away all of a sudden to avoid looking at him. She can practically feel Red still fixated on her, before Green shakes it off from her mind, and continues forward into Pewter City.

Red, shrugging it off, moves to continue walking with her into Pewter City as well. Appearing from his Poké Ball, Charmander slowly begins to walk alongside Red as well, walking in steps that seem in sync with Red's own. Red seems to have noticed Charmander's interest in staying out of his Poké Ball, but doesn't see anything out of the ordinary about it.

Red, wanting to try and perk up Charmander's more emotive side, heads towards a nearby tree to check and see if any berries are present in it, and also checking for any kind of honey. Green, looking back at Red, notices what Red is doing as she gasps.

"Red! Be careful! Trees this far north contain nests of-"

"Bzzz."

A large, near 3 foot tall insectoid Pokémon shows itself from the hidden depths of the leaf covered tree, as it moves to leave its perch and fly outwards to look at Red, who only partially backs away from the yellow and black colored Pokémon.

"B-Beedrill…!" Green mumbles a bit, quieter than she was speaking prior as to not provoke the large wasp-esque Pokémon towards her. However, despite her attempt to lay low when it emerged from the tree, Beedrill quickly flies over towards Green with a bit of interest. Green is too scared to budge; she wants to run, but she knew that only makes Beedrill angry. She wants to scream out for help, but that she also knows only makes them angrier. Nothing Green could potentially do seemed to be a viable option to get away from this Beedrill.

Red doesn't budge an inch as he watches Green and the Beedrill, but Charmander doesn't even bother staying still at all. Charmander, without any kind of order or provocation, opens his mouth and blasts a burst of flames towards Beedrill, with the small embers generated upon impact, searing hot for not even a second, fall onto the ground as glowing, rainbow colored crystals of sorts.

Beedrill, burning hot from the flames having struck it, quickly moves to lie on the ground and land; Beedrill's expression, though difficult to judge, seems as though it's confused by having been attacked.

"Charmander, stop." Red commands, quietly, but for some reason Charmander begins to rush towards Beedrill, his claws unsheathing as metallic coating surrounds them, leading to him slashing Beedrill in the face with both of his sets of claws. Beedrill, still not one to budge, or so much as even react, simply shines as though its entire exoskeleton simply hardens on touch, eventually doing so long enough to where its entire body becomes a golden shell completely encasing its full grown form.

"R-Red, I think something is wrong with this particular B-Beedrill…" Green says, as she shudders a bit; something about Beedrill always terrified her, especially when she was gardening for so long in her life to know what Beedrill were attracted to in regards to garden plants. Beedrill were typically highly aggressive from what she had experienced, but this particular Beedrill was beyond simply being incredibly passive.

Red brings out his Pokédex to analyze Beedrill, as to check and see what moves it has. The screen only showcases the move "Harden", and gives no other results for any other possible moves this particular Beedrill knows. Green isn't certain of what to do, as she's still shaking from how close in proximity Beedrill had gotten to her. Red, walking up to Green, decides to help her out with this.

Moving to take Green's right hand, placing an empty Premier Ball in it, and having Green securely hold it, Green looks at Red from behind to question what exactly he wants her to do; being so frightened right now, Green didn't even notice how she allowed him to get up close to her and move her hand in such a way. Green watches as though Red lifts her arm, to have her hand point with the Premier Ball towards Beedrill; giving a gesture using her hand held in his own to have her throw the Premier Ball, Green quietly gasps as she looks at Red.

"R-Red, are you s-sure?" Green asks, to which Red looks at her and nods. Red moves to step away, to give Green plenty of space, to see what she'll do next. Green, chucking the Premier Ball towards Beedrill, watches as it connects and opens up, dragging Beedrill inside and closing around it, gently falling on the ground.

 _One shake, two shakes, three shakes… *click*_

Green finally stops shuddering as she grabs the Premier Ball on the ground, realizing she had caught Beedrill successfully. Green, looking back at Red, is given a thumb's up by him for finally catching her first Pokémon from the wild. Not choosing to say anything, Green puts the Premier Ball on her belt as she moves to head towards the Pokémon Center.

Upon their arrival, the duo are treated to very much the same interior as the one in Viridian City, only with a few small differences in regards to characters they see. Sitting comfortably on a chair, a small, spherical Pokémon sits with large, wide eyes, and very small hands and feet, and a curl of hair on its forehead.

"Awww, it's a Jigglypuff~!" Green exclaims as she moves towards the Pokémon, called Jigglypuff, as she moves to pet it on its head repeatedly. Red, meanwhile, checks around as takes his Poké Balls to the front counter. A Nurse Joy is seen behind the desk, as she quietly takes Red's Pokémon to heal them in a specialized machine. Nobody knows for certain how Pokémon Center healing machines work, but they fully restore a Pokémon to full vitality upon use.

Once she is done, Nurse Joy quickly approaches Red with his Poké Balls and gives them back to him. "We hope to see you again!" Nurse Joy exclaims cheerfully, almost in the fashion of a cheerleader. Red, meanwhile, leaves off to the side after he notices a paper on the wall advertising something.

 _"Solo Training Room Sessions._

 _Want to power up your Pokémon quickly? Desiring a quick evolution? These training sessions are just for you! Paying a small fee of ₱100 per intensity level, you'll be pit against an AI opponent using a team consisting of 2 to 6 Pokémon for you to train against. Trainers who desire to use these rooms are only permitted to use 1 Pokémon per session, but said Pokémon will be benefitted by the training room's environment being generated specifically benefitting their own type, thus increasing the rate a Pokémon can grow stronger in these rooms._

 _Do note, however, that upon entering these rooms, you will not be allowed to leave for 2 hours, unless the training regime is cancelled prior to conclusion. Your final fee will be based on how long you last as well as the intensity level set before entering."_

Checking the time, Red's clock on his Pokégear reads 10 AM in the morning. If he were to take this challenge, he'd be leaving here at around 12 PM at earliest, and considering Red already has more than enough knowledge to know that Gym Battles don't occur until 12 PM or later in the day, Red doesn't see anything to lose.

As Green is more than spoiling a Jigglypuff off to the side, and Blue is in a better spot on his own rather than with company, but Green will readily assist him should he call, Red decides to head to the training room doors to sign up for solo training.

Charmander pops out of his Poké Ball again, as Red looks down at him with a small smile.

"I take it you wish to train first then, right Charmander?" Red asks, to which Charmander nods.

"Raah!" Charmander growls, as he jumps up and down, as Red nods in confirmation, before opening the terminal to the training room, designated as "Solo Training Entry Fee Setup". Red deposits ₱5,000, thus setting the intensity level to 5, as the box reads in text to Red. The training room door opens, as Red and Charmander step inside, and are subsequently warped away into the unknown vicinity of the training room.

* * *

Upon arrival, Red and Charmander find themselves in a sunlight filled, volcanic terrain, as Charmander is ready to battle whatever opponent comes his way. Digging up from under the ground, a massive Onix materializes before Charmander, surrounding the entire arena with its immense length.

Charmander's first response from the get go is to immediately blast Onix with fire from his mouth, as he spews small flames at a high rate of fire between individual flames, as they managed to burn parts of Onix's body, but don't appear to do all that much damage.

Onix, meanwhile, raises its tail to attack Charmander with, as Charmander moves to dodge out of the way. Onix, not deterred by this, tries to attack again with its tail, but this time around, Charmander's claws unsheathe into their metallic forms, and proceed to slice at Onix's tail and actually doing damage to the point Onix's stone body has a visible, gaping wound from where Charmander's claws struck.

Onix, meanwhile, opens its mouth wide as it generates a large deposit of rocks from its mouth, before dropping them across the arena surrounding Charmander. With Charmander left with a smaller amount of room to attack or dodge, Charmander isn't capable of dodging Onix hurling a massive boulder from its mouth right into Charmander, causing the Fire Type Pokémon to recoil backwards as he tries to force the rock in the opposite direction.

Red doesn't appear aware of the whole concept of "words of encouragement", which would be useful at a time like this for Charmander. Charmander, looking back towards Red, shoots him a little glare, before Charmander's tail flame intensifies to where it begins burning blue. Red's expression is completely neutral, almost completely blank with no noticeable emotion being given. With a role model such as that, perhaps Charmander is screwed.

Or perhaps not; slashing upwards with his metallic claws, Charmander slices an incoming boulder in half before it can hit him, and then proceeds to engulf himself with his own flames as his entire body glows as bright as the sun itself. Charmander growls harshly towards Onix, provoking it into attacking, as Charmander braces for impact in a defiant, neutral glance towards Onix.

Onix, being merely an AI opponent, doesn't register the emotion behind Charmander's intent, but regardless attacks as Charmander intends; smashing large, stone spires into Charmander which it summons from the ground below, Charmander allows himself to take the damage upfront without attempting to dodge it.

Exactly where Charmander wanted Onix at this moment; Charmander proceeds to glow with a molten magma-esque coloration, before allowing itself to take another attack from Onix again, as a large boulder drops on Charmander. With Charmander underneath, the boulder surprisingly melts into nothing more than molten minerals, as all of the other rocks in the arena also dissolve in turn.

Charmander unleashes the energy stored up from soaking up damage from Onix, in the form of an immense, starlight eruption of coronal mass flame; Onix's body takes the damage with no chance of avoiding it, as Onix's stone skin melts off of itself as the wireframe mesh underneath of itself is exposed as its ability to take hits at this point is degenerating.

"RAAAH!" Charmander growls as though actually roaring, before breathing out an immense, violet ball of flame towards Onix's head, exploding upon impact with enough force to shatter the wireframe AI to smithereens. With Onix defeated, Charmander can feel the power of its opponent transferring to himself, as the properties of the room "reward" Charmander with a fraction of the power of the intensity of the opponent, being fully absorbed into Charmander.

Red is completely blank faced in all of this, as Charmander, as well as Red, are confused; a second opponent should've appeared by now, but it does not. Red pulls up the manual to the room on the wall, reading it carefully, as he notices only just now the fine print.

"Every 5 intensity levels only has a single opponent appear at a time, due to the fights being expected to last longer than any other equivalent level." Red reads aloud, as Charmander sounds practically disappointed with the growl it gives out. Red, knowing full well Charmander will have another go at an Onix anyways because of Pewter Gym, realizes it's time to stop the training for now, and proceeds to press the button on the wall to cause them to exit the room.

* * *

Red didn't even realize the fight lasted as long as it did, since all of it felt shorter than expected, but perhaps that might've been the heat from Charmander getting to him. Leaving the training room with Charmander by his side, Red notices Green is still pampering the Jigglypuff at the side of the main room on the first floor, as a trainer in a white and purple uniform passes by Red's field of view, as he stops to take notice of the trainer in question.

Or, rather, more so his key choice of action upon walking up to the counter, in that he proceeds to jump over the counter and approach the Nurse Joy stationed there. "Hello, my darling." The man asks with an air of confidence, as Nurse Joy backs away in a timid fashion; had it been any normal trainer passing over the counter, Nurse Joy would've thrown them out by this point.

"U-Um… What can I do for you…?" Nurse Joy sheepishly asks, as she squeaks a bit on surprise as the man literally sweeps her off of her feet, with Nurse Joy's face turning red as she's forced to look at the man in his eyes; his bright, magenta eyes staring at her back with intensity.

"You don't want anything to do with the Jenny's, you need to see what it's like when a real man takes you for a ride!" The man points out, as Nurse Joy's eyes widen.

"B-But I'm only 16!" Nurse Joy yelps, as the man shoots her a cocky grin. Nurse Joy bites her hip to hide a yell, as she feels the man smack her behind as Nurse Joy's eyes close as she shudders a bit, not from pain, but from something else that Green and Red quickly take notice of and take watch of the man's actions against Nurse Joy.

"So am I! Imagine that, a coincidence, or a sign of fate showing us how well you're meant for me?" The man points out, as he takes his free hand and forcefully drags Nurse Joy's head and plants a kiss clean on her lips; Nurse Joy begins flailing about to try and get out of the man's grasp, but the man has her completely pinned, as only when the man gropes her again does she finally scream out in panic.

"Hey dick!" Green yells at the man, "Why don't you leave her alone and get lost, you sick creep!" Green yells at him, as she looks over towards Red, who immediately understands the situation and jumps behind the counter to try and grab the man away from Nurse Joy; however, the man simply chuckles, as he moves to grab Red, as he flips them both back towards the front of the counter.

Red, landing on his backside, watches as the man uses him as leverage to jump high into the air, pulling off at least two flips all the way, before landing on the ground in a three point landing. Nurse Joy proceeds to hide behind her counter, quickly being heard muttering something on her Pokégear hidden there, as Green moves to attend to Nurse Joy, now that the man's attention is focused on Red.

"Well, that plan worked quicker than I had expected! Allow me to introduce myself; I am _the_ 0Ω, the one and only!"


	11. Chapter 10: All That Glitters

**Starlight Ablaze Chapter 10:**

* * *

Red simply stared with a bit of a dull response; nothing about Zero Omega's flashy entrance so much as fazed him, even when can briefly see Green rushing behind the counter to check on Nurse Joy. Red couldn't register any familiarity with Zero Omega, since unlike when he had encountered Blue all alone, Zero Omega is wearing his helmet, obscuring his face entirely in the process.

"What? Had to get your attention somehow, even as stereotypical as the whole 'damsel in distress' is honestly not as effective anymore." Zero Omega bluntly states, as he looks towards Red with an even duller, unamused face and a shrug, a slight, small smirk all the while present. Red, simply points towards the counter behind Zero Omega's back, to which he points towards Nurse Joy at the counter.

Nurse Joy, who is currently scolding Green for reasons that only she would understand.

"So, wait, you wanted this guy to molest you like that?" Green yelps in exasperation, incapable of processing the words that came out of Nurse Joy's small mouth, as said small mouth forms into a sly smile.

"Why, yes. Do I honestly need to explain myself? I didn't tell him to stop, after all." Nurse Joy states, as she jumps over the counter to greet Zero Omega, rushing to his side and hugging him from his side, her bust brushing up against his arm, to which Zero Omega gives Nurse Joy an odd glance.

"Heh, seems like a bitch doesn't learn her lesson the first time." Zero Omega states, as he forcefully shoves Nurse Joy aside, all the while Nurse Joy's eyes were closed, as though ready to give Zero Omega a smooch; unfortunately for her, Zero Omega curled his left fist, and proceeded to nail Nurse Joy directly in the center of her face with a very fast, very well placed, direct hit of a punch.

"Nurse Joy!" Red and Green both exclaim, as Red's Charmander looks around, as though detecting an odd movement around; Zero Omega doesn't move from his spot, all the while revealing a Poké Ball in his hand, as a black wave of energy manifests around it.

"Snag you here, or snag you later, I honestly don't know." Zero Omega states with hesitation, all the while Green and Red had already moved to attend to Nurse Joy, who is collapsed by the wall closest to her backside from where she had stood. Zero Omega's Poké Ball shines gold within the pitch black aura, as Zero Omega throws the Poké Ball at Charmander, with Charmander being sucked inside with the black aura sucking it in.

The Poké Ball doesn't even have a chance to land on the ground, so much as shake, before Charmander immediately breaks out of it; the Poké Ball shattering like glass upon a failed attempt to capture Red's Charmander. It appears Zero Omega's little trick would've allowed him to capture Charmander just like he did Squirtle, but Charmander's increased strength wouldn't make that so easy by comparison.

"Drat! Seems like I'll have to try again…" Zero Omega states, but is interrupted by the entire room suddenly filling itself with an intense smoke; Red's Charmander's entire body has gone black in appearance, with Charmander's eyes glowing an intense red, and a body glowing a literal and figuratively fire red aura.

Charmander's body begins to crack in various places all across him; cracks that expel intense masses of plasmic, fiery substances; the fire alarms in the Pokémon Center nearly activate for all of three seconds, before the sprinkler systems attempt to activate, but are merely melted away in from coming into contact with the plasma bursts emanating from Charmander; Charmander's entire body looks like molten lava encompassing it, as its body grows to a significantly larger size, about half the height of Zero Omega's height.

Red and Green are outside of the Pokémon Center, along with Nurse Joy, as Zero Omega remained inside to simply gawk at what was going on with Red's Charmander.

"So that spacesuit of his is the only reason he's not being reduced to ash like the entire Pokémon Center will be soon?" Green asks, to which Nurse Joy nods.

"I've seen this before, but only in the wild in a hiking trip to Mount Silver." Nurse Joy states, as Red's gaze now looks towards her and her alone.

"Tell me, what is going on here?" Red asks, bluntly, as Nurse Joy gazes in shock upon witnessing Red's Charmander take on a new shape; larger arms with more developed, razor sharp claws, a stronger maul with an actual snout, a horn on the back of his head, and more robust legs than before, and an especially longer tail. A tail that proceeds to absorb all of the fiery damage it was causing, before dissipating the fire within the Pokémon Center until the only thing in sight that was burning was its own tail flame.

"Congratulations, Red, your Charmander has evolved into Charmeleon!" Nurse Joy states with fright, knowing that the lightshow with Charmander's evolution into Charmeleon would more than likely happen again at another point.

As Charmelon's body glows with a dark, charcoal black appearance with lava-like veins across his body, as Charmeleon breathes a massive fire ball towards Zero Omega, which Zero Omega tosses back at Charmeleon while struggling to do so all the while. Charmeleon's tail absorbs the fire ball upon contact, as Charmeleon's tail glows an immense blue in temperature, as Zero Omega activates the audio system on his helmet while observing the situation.

{Astral suit holding at 20,000 degrees. Not bad, but not what I want to endure for so long…} Zero Omega notes, as he taps into his communication channel on his helmet, {Mupo, I want a wormhole out of here, pronto.} Zero Omega simply states, as though unsurprised by all of this, as Charmeleon aggressively howls towards Zero Omega as if expecting a challenge; Zero Omega, though, simply walks into a wormhole of sorts appearing from behind him, while only walking slowly even in spite in Charmeleon's threat display.

With Zero Omega and the wormhole summoned to retrieve him vanishing, Charmeleon's fiery tail only partially subsides from blue to red in temperature, as everything becomes more calm inside the Pokémon Center; the sprinkler systems, apparently having a backup, begin to activate, as the room is sprayed with a mist of water that dissipates any flames they reach, with Charmeleon's tail flame being the sole exception. Though, at the very least, the backup sprinklers do at least calm down Charmeleon by forcing his tail flame to shrink a little bit to more manageable sizes.

Red, Green, and Nurse Joy both walk back into the Pokémon Center; everything within the first floor and the stairways to the second floor have a burnt appearance to them, no doubt caused by Charmeleon, but oddly enough, nothing was damaged beyond repair.

"All Charmeleon's little display did was destroy the old sprinkler system we had in place; it was a faulty one, constantly activating whenever a Fire Type Pokémon so much as entered the room, and it should've already had been removed, but apparently wasn't." Nurse Joy states, as she slowly looks over towards Red and Green with a hint of annoyance in her eyes.

"Still, though… why did you two have to be a pest and ruin my chances to get laid from that handsome devil?!" Nurse Joy asks, to which Red simply moves to deal with Charmeleon, as Green gawks at Nurse Joy in confusion.

"Nurse Joy, you're 16, and even if what that guy said is true with him also being 16, I feel like there's who knows how many guys in Kanto, heck, just within Pewter City, who would be true gentlemen to you and not a wannabe molester like that prick!" Green scolds Nurse Joy, to which Nurse Joy's expression puffs up.

"Quit it! I want it wild, chaotic, brutish, and I especially want it as legitimate as possible! It's my fetish! I can do what I want about it!"

A pair of handcuffs tie around Nurse Joy's hands, as an Officer Jenny had approached behind everyone's back.

"Joy! Never in all of my life have I seen any of my sisters or in-laws abuse the legal age of consent laws in such a way as you! You deserve a time out, young lady!" Officer Jenny scolds, as Green watches with bemusement.

"Uh… I'm assuming this is a regular thing with her in particular?" Green asks, as Officer Jenny nods.

"Oh hell yes; all of the Nurse Joy in Kanto have a sort of inherent horniness to them, but Pewter City's Nurse Joy has been the most law-breaking, nerve-wracking of the bunch, and she's not even fully 18 yet! I swear she gets this from my sister, or maybe my mom, I honestly don't know, and I don't care either, because this young lady needs to learn to control her own fetish before it gets her killed!" Officer Jenny points out, as Nurse Joy has a pouting face in all of this.

"It's no fair! I'm tired of being treated like a child!" Nurse Joy exclaims, as Officer Jenny growls a bit, before looking towards her, kneeling down to her level, since she was slightly shorter.

"Look, I don't care how much you want to be treated like an adult or even act like one, but what you have right now is innocence; innocence I would rather not have to see you lose to a low ruffian no matter how longing you would want to do it." Jenny tells the Joy, in a calmer tone. Nurse Joy averts eye contact from Officer Jenny.

"Please punish me? I'll pay immensely for it…?" Nurse Joy tries to beg with Jenny, as Jenny's gaze soften as she sighs.

"Listen, Joy, even if you were to have gotten what you wanted, would you not regret it in the future?" Jenny asks, to which Joy lowers her head. Jenny, gently, moves to raise Joy's head up to face her.

"I know this might sound harsh to you, but you're still young; I want to see you grow up to be just like your grandmother; that is what you said you wanted to do for so long, was it not?" Jenny asks, as Joy looks at Jenny with tears forming in her eyes.

"I… Um… N-No further questions, p-please…" Joy asks, before Jenny moves to escort her away from the interior of the Pokémon Center; she removes the handcuffs on Joy as she does, simply holding her hand as she leads her out. Green looks on in concern.

"Wow… I can't believe this event feels… fa-"

"My apologies for my daughter's mischief; she's quite the schemer when it comes to these things, but I hope it was nothing too traumatizing for you two." Nurse Joy states; a significantly older, but nevertheless youthful looking, Nurse Joy states, as she emerges from behind the counter, from which neither Red nor Green saw anywhere she could've appeared from. Charmeleon seemed more oblivious to what was going on, practically clueless as it growls a low rumble towards Red in partial excitement.

"Hello, and welcome to the Pokémon Center. How may we help you?" Nurse Joy asks, as Red and Green awkwardly look at each other.

"… We should head outside for a while; I need to clear my thoughts." Green says to Red, as Red commands his Charmeleon to follow him outside as Red more so runs even though he still moves as though walking outside. Green follows him out, as Nurse Joy giggles a bit as though nothing bad had happened.

"We hope to see you again~."

* * *

Red and Green are walking towards the Pewter City Museum at the northern part of the city; they realized that even though the Pewter City Gym was on the way, they should wait for Blue to get back from his Mankey chase before either of them attempts to challenge the Gym Leader.

As far as Green is concerned, she can more than handle the Gym Leader; she's aware that Pewter City's known for using Rock Type Pokémon, which means her Bulbasaur would have the advantage. As Red had observed for himself in the training room, meanwhile, he knew Charmander- no, Charmeleon, would be more than capable of flat out melting an Onix to slag if it came down to it. Restraining such power is more Red's concern than actually winning against the Gym Leader if anything, as he was lucky that Pokémon Centers are built to withstand such power from a Pokémon should they go chaotic inside one.

"So… Red, I have a question." Green speaks up, to break the silence, hoping to possibly help Red calm down after Charmander's explosive evolution into Charmeleon. Red, gazing at Green as he stops in place, moves to look for the nearest bench to sit down, gesturing Green to follow and sit alongside him.

"So what do you want to know?" Red asks, as Green sits down beside him and looks at him.

"That confrontation between Nurse Joy and Officer Jenny; I didn't quite understand at first what the two were talking about, even though I'm kind of seeing another interpretation of it, at least, one I can understand more easily." Green says, as Red looks at her.

"And what would that be?" Red asks, being a bit more talkative just to see what Green has to say.

"That youth is only a very short part of everyone's lives, and that we should relish our youth while we still can, before our adult responsibilities kick in and become a staple of our lives." Green details, as she looks at Red with a bit of a blush.

"Have you ever considered what you would do when you grow up? Maybe settle down somewhere nice?" Green asks; she mentally hopes she didn't sound too obvious with her implications, but she just wanted to check something.

Red had been a recluse for most of the time Green had known him, but Green had also known Blue for even less time, meaning Green doesn't know which of the two would make for her ideal partner; a thought that keeps crossing her mind, as she realizes that due to traveling with Red and Blue, she could be viewed by passing trainers as being an item with one or the other.

"Perhaps you need to slow down and think about this more when you're not under pressure; don't rush it, Green, let things happen naturally." Red tells Green, as he himself isn't certain how to comprehend Green's not so subtle advance; Green is the only girl his age he knows personally, but he feels perhaps it would be wise to listen to Green's advice. Perhaps not bring up such a question to Green, considering Red, Green, and Blue still have around two to three years to go until they're all 18 years old.

"You two seem like you're in deep thought over something." A voice breaks the silence between the two, which had lasted a solid two minutes, as someone appears from behind a building in a shy corner of the street. A rather tall, handsome man with bulging muscles from his loose shirt and pants, and having a slightly eye-catchingly rare dark skin, which isn't as dark as Sina's, but is also a different shade of brown overall, bordering on tan.

The man walks over towards Red and Green, as Red and Green are quick to notice something; the man has a very specialized belt, with both of his sides having a slot for 3 Poké Balls on each side, that can easily be removed and call upon any Pokémon he desires. These belts, as far as the two know, are only usually possessed by-

"I'm the Gym Leader of Pewter City; you may call me Brock." Brock introduces to Red and Green, as he moves to hold his hand out as a small gesture, as Red moves to readily shake his hand, and Green doing the same after Red does so. Green winces a bit, noticing how much strength Brock is holding back in his hands, and is surprised by how delicate his hand is holding her own despite such immense strength being hidden in plain view.

"So you're the Pokémon Breeder around Kanto as a whole, yes?" Green asks, as Brock looks at her and nods.

"Indeed; I even carry spare incubators for anyone who beats me in a battle to earn for themselves; anywhere else they'd charge you for, but I give one incubator per challenger out for free as to spread easier means of being able to breed one's Pokémon to incubate their eggs with." Brock details, as he looks at Red; he's a bit puzzled by Red's blank face staring right at him.

"… You're one of those types, I see; you think you hide it very well from everyone else, but I know your silent type a little too well. Trainers like you love to breed their Pokémon to produce stronger offspring than both of their parents combined. I knew a guy who was that to an absurd extreme, at least." Brock tells Red, hoping that it would somehow get a response from the hatless brunet.

"… Is there something wrong? Conversation getting awkward, or…?" Brock asks, as Red shakes his head, as he finally responds.

"No, it's not that, I just prefer to not speak overall. If I had the choice, I'd rather not speak at all." Red tells Brock, as Brock raises a brow, to which Green has been observing Brock's facial expression and movements. Not once does Brock open his eyes, and in every way his face moves, it appears as though he is incapable of doing so, or at the very least preventing himself from doing so.

Coughing to clear his throat, and to hopefully get both of their attention, Brock moves to speak again, "I heard your friend went off into Viridian Forest to catch a Mankey that stole your hat, but I'm hoping he ignores the Mankey for something else that had recently been spotted in Viridian Forest." Brock says, as Green raises an eye.

"Why? We kind of want to ensure Blue will have an advantage against your gym to make up for his Squirtle having been stolen." Green says, before adding, "I know it seems off we're specifically allowing him to seek out a Pokémon with an advantage, but considering the circumstances we-"

"You don't need to explain, Green." Brock tells her, gesturing for her to lower her volume to stop speaking. "I'm already fully aware of what Samuel's Squirtle means to him, and how much it pains me to know his prized Pokémon was stolen from his grandson. That, however, is nothing compared to the rumors spreading around." Brock states to Red and Green, before moving to kneel before them.

"Tell me, have you ever heard of a Pokémon called Riolu?"

* * *

 **AN: Any keen reader of my previous Pokémon fanfic, the completed Truth and Ideals, will possibly already know where I'm going with the references I've made towards that fic towards the end of this chapter. ;)**


	12. Chapter 10R: Superstar Riolu! Regulus!

**Starlight Ablaze Chapter 10R:**

* * *

 _((Hello?))_

"…"

Blue has the itching feeling on the back of his mind, but he can't quite put his finger on it; the hairs on the back of his head are practically standing upright with tense sensitivity to the surrounding air.

Something felt amiss, even in with the clean air that the Legendary Pokémon created within Viridian Forest, as Blue is struggling to concentrate on finding that Mankey, as well as ultimately getting Red's hat back in the process.

"It's got to be around here somewhere… But where?" Blue mumbles to himself, as he searches through the tall grass before him to find it. He quickly realizes he is retracing familiar ground, as he stumbles upon the large entanglement of roots that had held back the giant for all but a brief moment.

As Blue moves to cautiously approach the hollow, Blue's hairs stand up as he can practically feel something rushing at a high speed from behind him; Blue looks behind himself, hoping it was Mankey; he already knew of their speed, but something seems off.

Closing his eyes to listen carefully, Blue can begin to hear very tiny footsteps being made at an intense speed, at an even pace between each other step. Blue realizes the sound of the footsteps, as well as the small size of the owner, seems to indicate Mankey is not far away. However, that is not all he hears.

Traversing the ground nearby the Mankey at an immeasurable speed, with uneven steps every time it so much as touches the ground, appears to be a highly athletic Pokémon that is mostly moving airborne, seemingly in pursuit of Mankey.

The force of a small explosion suddenly breaks Blue's concentration; Blue curses to himself when recovering from the shock of the sound, as Blue looks around frantically.

"Dang it! That sense; just what is this I feel?! It's been happening more and more as of late!" Blue angrily shouts, as Blue moves to punch the bark of the hollow with his fist; upon landing a punch, he feels his hand ignite with an odd, bluish flame of sorts, as Blue frantically moves to put it out upon seeing his hand burning.

 _((Crap, crap, crap! How do I put this out and-))_

 _((Shut up!))_

 _((You shut up!))_

Blue yells out to the distant horizon of the hollow; something doesn't appear right, as he quickly notices; he didn't actually mouth those words, but rather his mouth hung agape as he spoke that line somehow. The flame on his hand dissipates as well, as Blue quickly looks at his hand, realizing he's not even harmed at all from the burning flame.

"What… the…?!" Blue has no idea if he actually spoke that with his mouth or not, or if those were just his thoughts, as now he's beginning to get a little paranoid; his hair stands on the back of his head and neck so intensely; something is approaching.

Hearing the intense sound of rushing through the trees, Blue is interrupted when he feels Red's hat drop from above, as he looks before himself and sees Mankey landing on the ground before him, not very far away. Blue readies a Poké Ball, but nothing can prepare him for what happens next.

 _((Get back!))_ A young, child-like voice yells out towards Blue, as Blue looks behind himself into the air, as something jumps out from the tree line; something small, but larger than Mankey, and baring a distinctive blue and black coloration with a facial mask and three digit hands and feet, and landing on the ground in a three-point landing, with a very noticeable crook in its right leg, as it quickly moves to get back up on its feet, facing away from Blue while doing so.

Mankey, in a bit of panic, frantically rushes at the blue and black Pokémon by picking up a large chunk of ground and throwing it at the Pokémon before it; the Pokémon, as if by instinct, shatters the large chunk of land with a single push of its palm; the Pokémon rushes forward, grabbing Mankey by the tail and catching the Pig Monkey Pokémon by complete surprise.

Blue's eyes widen as his mouth gapes open wide, upon witnessing the Pokémon proceeding to toss around Mankey against the ground; beating the Fighting Type into submission with it being in a helpless state, as a the small, borderline psychotic Pokémon throws the Mankey clean into a large boulder, as Mankey is nearly motionless.

Mankey slumps down to the ground next to the boulder, before suddenly standing up as its body glows with an immense energy; growing much larger in size, with its tail vanishing in the process, and growing much, much more robust arms and legs with hands the size of boxing gloves, turns around towards the mysterious Pokémon with eyes figuratively red like fire in pure anger.

The Pokémon gestures with its left hand for the newly evolved Mankey, now in a form called "Primeape", to approach it to attack; Primeape is quick to accept the offer and begins throwing punch after punch towards the small Pokémon; the Pokémon suddenly begins to have its body and hands suddenly surge with the same blue flame that enveloped Blue's hand prior.

Suddenly, the Pokémon vanishes, before reappearing from behind Primeape and having both palms face towards Primeape; a mysterious, explosive energy propels from the Pokémon's hands and send Primeape flying into a tree, but Primeape is quick to get back up and try and retaliate; try would be too kind of a word at this point, as the small, humanoid canine Pokémon begins to suddenly pummel Primeape's face with a combination of its hands and feet both striking powerful blows in rapid succession.

Blue is a loss for words as for what is happening, as he witnesses even the newly evolved Primeape fails to have anywhere near the strength to actually stop this Pokémon's rampage. Eventually Primeape does manage to get the room to begin returning punches just as rapidly; despite the size advantage, it doesn't even so much as do anything to so much as faze the blue and black Pokémon; during their exchange of punches and kicks towards each other, which lasts a solid minute and a half with neither side letting up, the blue and black Pokémon's eyes suddenly glow a striking gold in color for a brief second, as its punches become suddenly much more aggressive and harsher than it was ever dealing out before.

A sharp, intense howl breaks the silence of the arena; the ground below Primeape and the blue and black Pokémon begins to crumble into dust after dust, but the fierce Pokémon suddenly jabs Primeape in the gut with a sharp kick with its right knee; Primeape's expression couldn't be described in words as to just how worse the fight has just gotten; Primeape soon finds itself at the mercy of another, even sharper howl of utter rage, that sounds far too deep and monstrous to even plausibly originate from the blue and black Pokémon.

Suddenly the Pokémon unleashes a massive blast of mysterious energy which causes the Pokémon to launch itself into the sky; it didn't even aim towards Primeape to propel itself sky high, as it suddenly begins to dive down like a vast, predatory bird as it very rapidly charges a punch towards Primeape; Primeape is scared; it doesn't know what to do.

All it can do is let out a howling scream of pain once the mysterious Pokémon lands the charged up punch against it; Primeape is practically squashed on the ground, with a giant dent in its skull forming from the impact, as Primeape simply falls backwards and hits the ground, limp in movement.

"Holy…" Blue is trying to process this, but quickly comes to the realization; the Primeape is lost right now, but at the same time, nothing is stopping him from catching the blue and black Pokémon, as it now enters a fatigued state as its breathing becomes heavy, the flames dissipating around itself.

Blue throws a Poké Ball towards the exhausted Pokémon, as the Poké Ball strikes the Pokémon's forehead, as Blue could've sworn he heard the Pokémon let out a near human-like chuckle in glee.

 _((Well played striking me while I'm down; I am Regulus, the Shining Star; you should do your best to make sure you're worthy of my presence, human.))_

 _One shake, two shakes, three shakes… *click*_


End file.
